HQ  769  . S85  1923 
Stowell,  Jay  S.  1883-1966. 
The  child  and  America's 
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DEC  14  1926 

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America’s  Future 


by  Jay  S.  Stowell 

Author  of :  The  Near  Side  of  the  Mexican 
Question ;  Home  Mission  Trails; 

J.  W.  Thinks  Black;  etc. 


Published  jointly  by 

Council  of  Women  for  Home  Missions 

and 

Missionary  Education  Movement  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada 
New  York 


Copyright,  1923,  by  the 

COUNCIL  OF  WOMEN  FOR  HOME  MISSIONS 

AND 

MISSIONARY  EDUCATION  MOVEMENT  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO  THE  MOTHERS  AND  FATHERS, 
TEACHERS  AND  FRIENDS  OF  THE 
GIRLS  AND  BOYS  OF  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


Foreword 


PAGE 

ix 


Chapter  I.  America’s  Greatest  Asset  .  .  i 

Significance  of  human  infancy.  Illustrations  from 
other  countries.  Dealing  with  the  liquor  traffic. 
Experiences  in  the  World  War.  In  times  of  peace. 

Every  present  situation  has  its  roots  in  the  past. 

The  fundamental  position  of  the  home.  Who  are 
these  young  people  and  where  do  they  live?  Facts 
revealed  by  the  War.  A  home  mission  responsi¬ 
bility.  A  summary. 

Chapter  II.  Saving  Young  Bodies  .  .  .  33 

Comparison  with  other  countries.  Enormous  losses. 

Food  and  lack  of  food.  Carrying  out  a  task  begun 
by  Jesus.  Christian  women  minister  to  the  needy. 

The  White  House  Conference.  Facts  revealed  by 
the  Children’s  Bureau.  The  care  of  mothers.  Other 
agencies.  The  public  health  nurse.  Better  trained 
parents  essential.  A  task  for  the  Church. 

Chapter  III.  Play  and  Work  ....  59 

Opportunities  for  play  needed.  The  playground  and 
its  importance.  Clubs  for  girls  and  boys.  The 
story  of  a  home  mission  church.  Play  in  the  rural 
regions.  The  program  of  a  rural  church.  A  mining 
camp.  Contributions  of  women’s  agencies.  The 
place  of  motion  pictures.  The  problem  of  work. 
Changes  in  industry  and  child  labor.  Education  the 
business  of  childhood.  Need  for  a  constructive  pro¬ 
gram  of  work.  Crime  a  result  of  misdirected  leisure. 

A  program  of  leisure-time  activities  essential. 

Chapter  IV.  Education  in  a  Democracy  .  .  91 

Religious  motives  paramount.  Other  motives  enter 
in.  Idea  of  free  popular  education  grows.  Our 
schools  not  altogether  successful.  Many  bright 
spots.  Very  unequal  opportunities,  many  illiterate. 

School  attendance  neglected.  Buildings  inadequate 
and  teachers  untrained.  A  survey  of  New  York 
State  schools.  Conditions  can  be  improved.  Urgent 
need  for  Federal  aid.  Demand  for  more  advanced 

iv 


CONTENTS 


v 


PAGE 

training.  Education  a  religious  problem.  Special 
need  among  Mexicans  and  Spanish  Americans. 

Negro  mission  schools.  A  time  of  crisis. 

Chapter  V.  Christian  Nurture  in  the  Church 
School . 119 

Urgent  need  of  a  worth-while  religion.  Religious 
training  the  secret  of  all  religious  success.  The 
home  and  the  Sunday  School.  Successes  and  fail¬ 
ures  of  the  Sunday  School.  Millions  of  girls  and 
boys  unreached.  Sunday  School  program  inade¬ 
quate.  Untrained  teachers  at  technical  tasks.  The 
Indiana  Survey.  Expenditure  and  buildings.  The 
Peak-Load-at-a-Single-Hour.  Extending  the  Sun¬ 
day  School  period.  Religious  day  schools.  Daily 
Vacation  Bible  Schools.  The  Week-day  Church 
School.  Experience  at  Gary,  Indiana.  The  task 
overwhelmingly  home  missionary  in  character. 

Chapter  VI.  The  Child  and  America’s  Future  153 

Importance  of  a  goal.  A  healthier  America.  A 
more  intelligent  America.  Better  religious  training 
for  American  youth.  Better  provisions  for  using 
leisure  time.  Need  for  a  sense  of  stewardship. 
Checking  crime  at  its  source.  Learning  to  be 
friends.  A  world  brotherhood.  Doing  the  task. 

The  plan  of  home  missions.  Success  only  at  the 
price  of  sacrificial  effort. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 

PAGE 

Americans  in  the  Making  .  .  .  Frontispiece 


Snap-shots  of  Rural  Life . 22 

By  Way  of  the  Street . 23 

Where  Do  They  Live  ? . 54 

The  Community  Nurse  at  Work . 55 

A  Church  Farm . 70 

Community  Recreation . 71 

Picking  Beans . 86 

The  Tenth  American  Child . 87 

A  Consolidated  School . 102 

Schools  That  Were  Consolidated  ....  103 

A  Seven-day-a-week  Church . 118 

A  Modern  Sunday  School  Room  .  .  .  .119 

“Americans” . 134 

Potential  Citizens  of  Our  United  States  .  .  .  135 


FOREWORD 


The  biggest  and  most  important  task  confronting 
America  is  to  care  for  her  girls  and  boys,  to  undergird 
their  characters  with  the  old-fashioned  virtues,  and  to 
train  them  to  carry  the  application  of  those  virtues  over 
into  the  very  complicated  social,  civic,  and  economic 
life  of  which  they  form  a  part.  No  other  task  com¬ 
pares  with  this  in  its  fundamental  importance  and  its 
far-reaching  effects  upon  America’s  future. 

As  a  teacher  in  the  public  schools,  a  worker  in  the 
church  school,  a  director  of  community  recreation,  a 
parent,  and  a  traveler  into  the  waste  places  of  the 
nation,  the  author  has  come  into  intimate  contact  with 
American  youth  under  many  varied  conditions.  To 
even  the  most  casual  observer  it  is  evident  that  multi¬ 
tudes  of  our  young  people  are  not  having  even  half 
a  chance  at  the  good  things  of  life  for  themselves,  or 
a  fair  opportunity  to  become  intelligent  and  useful 
citizens.  To  these  unprivileged  children  our  sympa¬ 
thies  go  out.  Because  of  them  social  progress  is  re¬ 
tarded  and  civilization  is  made  to  bear  a  grievous  load. 

The  present  volume  is  an  attempt  to  bring  together 
in  brief  survey  the  consideration  of  some  major  factors 
which  are  often  treated  separately  by  specialists,  but 
rarely  in  relation  to  each  other.  They  should  compel 
serious  attention  to  a  matter  with  which  we  are  all 
most  vitally  concerned. 

Jay  S.  Stowell 

New  York  City, 

January,  1923 

ix 


CHAPTER  I 

America’s  Greatest  Asset 

Many  centuries  ago  a  wise  man  wrote,  “And  he 
that  sitteth  on  the  throne  said,  Behold,  I  make  all 
things  new.”  Today  these  words  are  as  true  as  in 
the  day  they  were  written.  The  great  Master  of  the 
universe  is  ever  remaking  his  world,  and  He  is  doing 
so  through  each  rising  generation.  The  process,  how¬ 
ever,  demands  our  cooperation,  and  the  reason  the 
work  seems  to  move  so  slowly  at  times  lies  in  the  fact 
that  we  cooperate  so  languidly  and  so  ineffectively. 

Up  to  date  we  seem  not  to  have  fully  comprehended 
God’s  method  of  work.  One  might  read  volume  after 
volume  of  our  Congressional  Record,  digest  the 
voluminous  reports  of  that  remarkable  world  congress 
at  Versailles,  or  follow  the  accounts  of  the  great  con¬ 
ference  on  disarmament  held  in  the  city  of  Washing¬ 
ton  without  being  unduly  impressed  by  the  fact  that 
the  solution  of  great  social,  national,  international, 
and  interracial  problems  lies  in  the  hands  of  the  girls 
and  boys  of  the  present.  Possibly  some  day,  in  a 
clearer  air,  we  shall  look  back  in  amazement  upon  the 
spectacle  of  great  conferences  of  the  nations  facing 
some  of  the  profoundest  questions  of  the  centuries 
and  neglecting  to  consider  the  part  which  the  world’s 
children  must  of  necessity  play  in  their  solution  if 
they  are  to  be  solved.  As  yet,  however,  we  have  not 
developed  the  habit  of  thinking  in  those  terms,  and  so 

our  minds  follow  along  the  accustomed  paths  and  we 

1 


2 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


continue  to  try  the  old  devices  and  to  do  the  habitual 
things,  little  dreaming  that  God  is  all  the  while  trying 
to  show  us  a  more  excellent  way. 

The  greatest  asset  of  today,  of  a  world  in  many 
respects  well-nigh  bankrupt,  is  the  world’s  girls  and 
boys.  In  them  lies  the  hope  of  the  world’s  future. 
And  what  is  true  of  the  world  at  large  is  doubly  true 
of  America.  America’s  greatest  asset  is  her  children. 
Not  long  ago  a  man  of  national  reputation  wrote  a 
book  1  addressed  to  the  girls  and  boys  of  America. 
In  it  he  sounded  forth  this  ringing  challenge,  “Girls 
and  boys  of  America,  you  are  the  hope  of  the  world.” 
Over  and  over  he  repeated  these  words,  until  it  seemed 
as  though  every  young  person  who  came  within  reach 
of  the  book  must  have  burned  into  his  soul,  “Girls  and 
boys  of  America,  you  are  the  hope  of  the  world.” 

The  author  proceeded  to  point  out  that,  while  mil¬ 
lions  of  girls  and  boys  were  dying  for  lack  of  food, 
American  young  people  were  living  in  a  land  of  plenty. 
He  showed  how  war  had  placed  millions  of  young  men 
of  other  lands  under  the  sod — young  men  who  might 
have  been  great  leaders  of  men,  great  scientists,  great 
poets,  great  tellers  of  tales,  great  inventors,  great  mer¬ 
chants,  great  physicians,  great  preachers — while  Amer¬ 
ican  young  folk  had  escaped  almost  unscathed.  He 
called  attention  to  America’s  physical  resources,  to  her 
great  men  of  the  past,  to  her  public  schools,  to  her 
ideals,  and  to  the  great  uncompleted  tasks  which  must 
be  carried  through  to  completion,  if  at  all,  by  the  girls 
and  boys.  And  then  he  closed,  as  he  had  begun,  with 

1  You  are  the  Hope  of  the  World.  Hermann  Hagedorn. 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


3 


the  striking  words,  “You  are  the  hope  of  the  world.” 

Atid  doubtless  all  that  the  writer  said  was  true.  In 
quite  a  new  sense  today  the  girls  and  boys  of  America 
are  the  hope  of  the  world,  and  if  so,  how  much  more 
the  hope  of  the  nation  itself.  There  is  much  at  stake 
in  the  kind  of  people  our  young  folk  become.  What 
sort  of  habits  are  they  to  have?  What  sort  of  ideals 
are  they  to  hold?  What  sort  of  things  are  they  to 
consider  worth  while?  What  kind  of  tasks  will  they 
undertake,  and  how  well  equipped  are  they  to  be  for 
the  fulfilment  of  these  tasks  ?  There  are  no  more  im¬ 
portant  questions  than  these  before  the  nation  or  be¬ 
fore  the  Christian  Church  today.  The  nation’s  future 
and  the  future  of  the  Church  hinge  upon  the  answers 
which  shall  be  given.  A  whole  world  is,  for  the  first 
time  in  its  history,  listening  expectantly  for  the  reply. 
And  the  nature  of  that  reply  will  not  be  determined 
some  years  hence,  when  the  youth  of  the  present  have 
grown  to  maturity;  it  is  being  determined  now — yes¬ 
terday,  today,  and  tomorrow — in  the  home,  at  school, 
at  church,  on  the  street,  on  the  playground.  And  we, 
the  parents,  the  teachers,  the  friends  of  the  girls  and 
boys  of  America,  are  shaping  the  character  of  the 
future  by  the  materials  which  we  are  at  present  build¬ 
ing  into  their  lives.  At  this  point,  as  perhaps  at  no 
other,  it  is  given  to  us  to  be  workers  together  with  God. 

SIGNIFICANCE  OF  HUMAN  INFANCY 

There  is  no  more  striking  characteristic  of  humanity 
itself  than  human  infancy.  Not  only  is  the  human 
infant  among  the  most  helpless  of  all  infants  at  birth, 


4 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


but  his  progress  toward  maturity  is  at  a  snail’s  pace. 
When  he  at  length  reaches  full  maturity,  most  of  his 
contemporaries  in  the  animal  world,  from  the  stand¬ 
point  of  birth,  have  passed  through  all  the  stages  from 
infancy  to  maturity  and  physical  decline  and  are  al¬ 
ready  decrepit  or  dead  from  old  age  or  other  cause. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  frequently  that  this  long 
extended  period  of  infancy,  holding  parents  together 
for  the  care  of  the  younger  children  until  the  older 
ones  have  approached  or  reached  maturity,  has  been 
one  of  the  determining  factors  in  building  up  the 
human  family  and  through  it  the  clan  and  the  more 
highly  developed  social  machinery  of  the  race. 

But  the  full  significance  of  human  infancy  lies 
deeper  than  that,  for  at  every  step  of  the  way  we  are 
faced  with  the  rare  privilege  of  building  into  young 
lives  those  things  which  will  help  to  remake  the  world 
that  is  to  be,  a  little  more  into  the  likeness  of  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God,  or — to  quote  a  phrase  of  Professor 
George  Albert  Coe’s,  which  does  not  alter  the  content 
of  the  term — “the  democracy  of  God.”  Surely,  if  we 
are  at  all  justified  in  looking  about  us  for  indications 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  divine  purpose,  we  must  be 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  plan  of  God  is  to 
build  his  kingdom,  in  cooperation  with  us,  through  the 
rising  generation.  If  there  be  any  other  effective 
method  for  dethroning  evil  and  establishing  justice  in 
the  world,  it  has,  as  yet,  not  been  made  manifest. 

The  world  was  shocked  a  few  years  ago  when  a 
great  psychologist  called  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in 
the  case  of  most  individuals,  personal  habits  for  the 


AMERICA'S  GREATEST  ASSET 


5 


entire  life  were  fixed  during  adolescence,  permanent 
business  habits  were  acquired  only  a  little  later,  and 
the  chance  of  acquiring  a  big  new  idea  was  slight  after 
thirty  years  of  age.  A  chorus  of  protests  came  back; 
surely  man  had  more  freedom  than  that.  What  was 
there  to  stop  an  individual  from  getting  many  new 
ideas,  and  whenever  he  chose?  Illustrations  of  radical 
change  in  habits  of  life  and  thought  were  cited.  All 
of  which  was  pertinent  so  far  as  it  went,  but  none  of 
which  modified  the  fact  that  for  the  great  mass  of 
humanity,  that  mass  which  now  is  coming  into  its  own 
in  this  new  age  of  democracy,  the  habits,  the  ideas, 
the  ideals,  and  the  motives  which  will  remain  in  con¬ 
trol  throughout  life  are  permanently  fixed  at  a  sur¬ 
prisingly  early  age.  Nothing  but  a  great  new  experi¬ 
ence  is  likely  to  affect  them. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  noted  that  the  World 
War  was  just  such  a  great  new  experience.  A  social 
explosion  on  a  world  scale  did  modify  the  thinking 
and  the  habits  of  many  who  would  have  been  un¬ 
touched  by  a  lesser  event.  The  remarkable  thing  is 
that  its  effects  were  not  more  far  reaching — that  so 
many  people  went  through  it  and  still  came  out  of  the 
experience  with  the  same  old  mental  equipment  and 
social  formulas  with  which  they  entered.  Even 
though  they  were  effective,  however,  civilization  could 
not  long  stand  the  cost  of  remaking  society  by  such 
methods.  Fortunately  we  do  not  have  to.  We  have 
the  children.  With  them  we  stand,  as  it  were,  at  the 
great  turntable  of  life.  A  powerful  engine  destined 
for  a  long  run  is  by  our  side.  Steam  is  up.  The  pres- 


6 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


sure  is  high.  The  giant  must  move  in  some  direction. 
It  is  for  us  to  determine  once  for  all  whether  that 
shall  be  north,  south,  east,  or  west.  Such,  indeed,  is 
the  responsibility  which  God  has  placed  upon  the 
parents  and  the  teachers  of  youth — to  determine  the 
direction  in  which  the  rising  generation  shall  move. 

Few  have  spoken  more  clearly  to  this  point  than  the 
late  Benjamin  Kidd  in  The  Science  of  Power.  He 
says:  “So  far  from  civilization  being  practically  un¬ 
changeable  or  only  changeable  through  influences 
operating  slowly  over  long  periods  of  time,  the  world 
can  be  changed  in  a  brief  space  of  time.  Within  the 
life  of  a  single  generation  it  can  be  made  to  undergo 
changes  so  profound,  so  revolutionary,  so  permanent, 
that  it  would  almost  appear  as  if  human  nature  itself 
had  been  completely  altered  in  the  interval.” 

He  adds:  “The  mechanism  and  forces,  moreover, 
capable  of  producing  changes  of  this  nature  already 
exist  in  the  world.  .  .  .  The  science  of  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  this  mechanism  and  of  the  control  of  these 
forces  is  the  real  science  of  civilization.” 

And  then,  after  an  extended  and  detailed  interpre¬ 
tation  of  his  meaning,  he  gives  us  this  striking  state¬ 
ment,  “Oh,  you  blind  leaders  who  seek  to  convert  the 
world  by  labored  disputations !  Step  out  of  the  way 
or  the  world  must  fling  you  aside.  Give  us  the  Young. 
Give  us  the  Young,  and  we  will  create  a  new  mind 
and  a  new  earth  in  a  single  generation.” 

Fortunately  we  have  more  than  mere  theory  to  back 
up  Mr.  Kidd’s  amazing  assertions.  The  modern  world 
has  supplied  us  with  some  striking  illustrations  of  the 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


7 


transformation  of  the  outlook  of  an  entire  nation  by 
creating  new  ideals  in  the  nation’s  youth. 

ILLUSTRATIONS  FROM  OTHER  COUNTRIES 

Most  frequently  quoted,  and  perhaps  most  impres¬ 
sive  of  all,  is  the  example  of  Germany.  In  her  case 
we  have  an  instance  of  a  transformation  on  a  scale 
perhaps  exceeding  anything  else  which  history  has  to 
offer.  The  human  mind  could  not  take  it  in  for, 
despite  its  effectiveness,  the  work  had  been  wrought 
so  quietly  and  by  such  simple  and  humble  processes 
that  even  those  who  had  watched  it  take  place  could 
hardly  believe  it.  The  men  and  women  who  had  left 
Germany  in  earlier  years  could  not  comprehend  that 
the  entire  character,  outlook,  and  motive  of  the  Ger¬ 
man  nation  had  been  fundamentally  altered. 

It  was  the  first  time  that  a  great  nation,  with  an 
efficient  mechanism  for-  the  purpose  at  hand,  had 
undertaken  to  impress  a  radically  new  ideal  upon  a 
rising  generation.  The  fact  that  the  ideal  chanced  to> 
be  a  selfish  one  and  that  it  was  autocratically  imposed 
does  not  detract  from  the  significance  of  its  method 
and  the  amazing  results  achieved  by  its  use.  In  this 
case,  indeed,  the  children  of  darkness  were  wiser  in 
their  generation  than  the  children  of  light.  Had  Ger¬ 
many  chosen  an  unselfish  ideal  and  followed  it  with 
equal  fidelity,  there  is  no  pinnacle  of  world  leadership 
to  which  she  might  not  have  aspired  and  attained. 

And  the  method  of  the  transformation  is  not  a 
hidden  one.  Upon  the  accession  to  power  of  William 
II,  he  called  together  the  one  group  that  reached  all 


8  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

the  girls  and  boys  of  Germany;  namely,  the  elemen¬ 
tary  school-teachers.  With  them  the  work  began,  and 
from  them  it  was  extended  to  the  teachers  of  the 
higher  schools,  and  later  to  the  universities.  It  was 
only  in  the  latest  stages,  we  are  told,  that  the  adult 
mind  of  the  nation  was  considered.  In  the  meantime, 
substantial  and  abiding  foundations  had  been  laid  in 
the  heart  of  the  nation’s  youth.  In  the  almost  un¬ 
believably  short  space  of  a  few  decades  the  work  was 
done.  We  are  told  that  in  the  main  it  was  the  achieve¬ 
ment  of  but  two  men,  Adalbert  Falk,  Prussian  Minister 
of  Education  up  to  1879,  and  William  II — two  indi¬ 
viduals  who  believed  in  the  possibilities  of  girls  and 
boys  as  the  agents  for  remaking  a  nation’s  life. 

Scarcely  less  striking  is  the  well-nigh  miraculous 
transformation  of  Japan  within  the  lifetime  and 
memory  of  multitudes  now  living.  The  rapidity  with 
which  Japan  has  traveled  the  long  road  from  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  a  hermit  nation,  entirely  cut  off  from  inter¬ 
course  with  or  participation  in  the  world’s  affairs,  to 
that  of  a  world  power  to  be  reckoned  with  and  called 
into  conference  when  matters  of  importance  are  to  be 
considered,  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  phenomena 
of  our  age.  Yet,  again,  the  solution  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Japan  has  taken  this  long  and  rapid  stride  forward 
because  she  began  with  her  girls  and  boys,  because  she 
constructed  a  public  school  system  which,  whatever 
Its  deficiencies  from  the  standpoint  of  supplying  facili¬ 
ties  for  secondary  education,  did  carry  elementary 
education  to  the  uttermost  corners  of  the  Empire. 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


9 


The  result  has  been  a  new  Japan  whose  voice  is  heard 
with  respect  in  the  councils  of  the  nations. 

DEALING  WITH  THE  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC 

Nor  are  we  forced  to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
own  country  to  discover  illustrations  of  the  success 
of  similar  methods.  Since  the  beginning  of  history 
liquor  has  exacted  its  enormous  toll  from  the  sum 
total  of  human  efficiency  and  social  welfare.  Thor¬ 
oughly  intrenched  in  individual  habits,  social  custom, 
and  social  heritage,  it  had  brazenly  defied  all  on¬ 
slaughts.  And  then,  suddenly,  we  saw  the  legalized 
liquor  traffic  abolished  in  the  nation.  Those  who 
profited  by  the  traffic  tell  us  that  it  was  done  in  a 
moment  of  national  hysteria,  that  it  was  “put  over” 
surreptitiously  while  “the  boys”  were  in  France.  But 
that  hardly  states  the  case.  If  it  was  “put  over,”  it 
was  not  done  while  the  boys  were  in  France,  but  a 
generation  earlier  when  the  facts  about  the  effects  of 
alcohol  were  introduced  into  the  regular  curriculum 
of  our  public  schools  and  into  our  Sunday-schools; 
and  when  members  of  the  Woman’s  Christian  Tem¬ 
perance  Union  and  other  consecrated  women  gathered 
groups  of  children  together  all  over  the  United  States 
and  by  pictures,  object  lessons,  and  word  of  mouth 
impressed  upon  their  minds  and  hearts  the  evils  of 
the  liquor  traffic.  In  those  days  the  Woman’s  Chris¬ 
tian  Temperance  Union  with  its  white  ribbons  and 
its  Loyal  Temperance  Legion  bands  was  a  subject  for 
ridicule  on  the  part  of  the  forces  of  evil. 


10 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


But  the  girls  and  the  boys  grew  up.  They  became 
fathers  and  mothers;  they  became  lawyers  and  doc¬ 
tors;  they  became  teachers,  farmers,  employers  of 
labor,  railroad  superintendents,  state  legislators,  gov¬ 
ernors,  and  congressmen;  and  the  deed  was  done. 
How  thoroughly,  indeed,  we  may  infer  from  the  fact 
that  of  the  more  than  twenty-five  hundred  counties  in 
the  United  States  there  remained  but  three  hundred 
and  five  which  had  not  declared  themselves  dry  prior 
to  the  enactment  of  the  prohibition  amendment. 
Now  that  the  deed  is  done,  we  have  the  outcry  of  a 
loud-voiced  minority ;  and  when  we  study  that 
minority,  we  discover  that  it  is  made  up  overwhelm¬ 
ingly  of  representatives  of  our  foreign-born  groups, 
persons  who  as  children  lived  in  an  entirely  different 
environment  and  were  subjected  to  an  entirely  dif¬ 
ferent  teaching.  One  of  the  best  known  of  our  fed¬ 
eral  judges  recently  declared  that  ninety  per  cent  of 
the  liquor  law  violators  who  were  brought  before  him 
were  foreign  born.  Before  the  blessing  of  prohibi¬ 
tion  can  be  made  permanent  and  assured,  we  must 
spend  other  years  training  the  children  of  those  who 
at  present  are  loudest  in  their  railings.  Nor  will  it  be 
surprising  if  the  process  involves  considerable  time 
and  effort,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  much  of  its  effec¬ 
tiveness  will  be  nullified  by  the  influence  of  the  home 
with  foreign  ideals.  In  New  York  State,  for  example, 
the  latest  census  reveals  the  fact  that  sixty-two  per 
cent  of  the  entire  population  is  made  up  of  immigrants 
or  children  of  immigrants. 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


II 


EXPERIENCES  IN  THE  WORLD  WAR 

The  World  War,  bad  as  it  was,  provided  us  with 
an  opportunity  for  some  very  interesting  experiments 
in  dealing  with  a  large  but  selected  group  of  young 
men.  Several  million  young  men,  multitudes  of  them 
having  little  or  no  idea  of  what  the  war  was  all  about, 
were  gathered  into  camps  and  cantonments.  Then 
began  the  herculean  task  of  creating  an  ideal  and  gen¬ 
erating  a  passion  for  it  in  the  hearts  of  these  multi¬ 
tudes  of  raw  recruits.  Rarely,  if  ever,  has  a  similar 
task  on  so  large  a  scale  been  undertaken.  Conditions, 
however,  were  favorable.  The  recruits  were  young, 
a  large  proportion  were  still  in  the  recognized  period 
of  susceptibility  to  new  ideas  and  new  passions.  They 
were  away  from  home,  in  a  new  and  strange  environ¬ 
ment.  All  the  transpiring  events  were  such  as  to 
stimulate  their  intellectual  and  emotional  life.  They 
were  assembled  at  points  where  they  could  be  reached 
and  their  attention  could  be  commanded.  Surely  the 
situation  was,  in  truth,  “made  to  order.” 

The  best  talent  which  the  nation  could  afford  was 
drafted  for  the  task.  Famous  orators  toured  the 
camps;  skilled  writers  prepared  documents  which  were 
duplicated  by  the  million  and  distributed ;  talented 
artists  taxed  their  abilities  to  put  into  pictures  the 
thing  that  others  were  trying  to  put  into  words.  Time 
was  precious;  every  moment  counted;  and  processes 
were  speeded  up  beyond  all  precedent.  And  with  what 
result?  Such  results  cannot  be  tabulated  even  though 
they  were  enormous,  but  we  are  told  that  not  a  boy 


12 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


in  France,  wearing  the  uniform  of  the  United  States, 
went  “over  the  top  ”  who  did  not  feel  that,  in  some 
way,  he  was  fighting  for  the  preservation  and  exten¬ 
sion  of  democracy  in  the  world,  and  that  he  was  a 
willing  sacrifice  in  a  great  and  noble  cause. 

With  the  same  group  we  tried  some  other  experi¬ 
ments,  the  results  of  which  can  be  more  readily  tabu¬ 
lated.  We  undertook,  for  example,  under  the  leader¬ 
ship  of  the  tobacco  interests  of  the  country  to  teach 
our  boys  to  use  cigarettes.  Just  why  it  should  have 
come  to  be  so  generally  recognized  that  a  cigarette 
was  an  essential  appendage  of  every  fighting  man  is 
hard  to  state,  particularly  in  view  of  the  fact  that  one 
of  the  very  first  pamphlets  issued  by  the  United  States 
Government  to  enroled  men,  even  before  the  canton¬ 
ments  were  ready  to  receive  them,  suggested  that,  in 
preparation  for  coming  to  camp,  any  men  who  were 
addicted  to  the  habit  of  smoking  should  cut  down  on 
the  amount  of  tobacco  consumed,  as  it  was  bad  for 
the  “wind.”  At  any  rate  the  idea  appeared  that  ciga¬ 
rettes  were  essential  to  the  soldier.  We  gave  our 
money  for  them;  we  shipped  them  in  unprecedented 
quantities;  we  distributed  them  free.  We  placed  them 
in  comfort  kits;  we  secured  the  services  of  beautiful 
girls  to  pass  them  out  to  the  men.  We  pictured  the 
cigarette  as  a  well-nigh  indispensable  asset  to  the  sol¬ 
dier,  and  we  said  openly,  or  implied  unmistakably, 
that  anyone  who  denied  that  statement  was  either  a 
mollycoddle  or  a  pro-German  or  both.  And  how  sur¬ 
prisingly  successful  we  were!  The  use  of  cigarettes 
increased  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Young  men  who  never 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET  13 

had  dreamed  of  needing  cigarettes  became  habitual 
users  of  them,  and  three  years  after  the  close  of  the 
war  the  annual  production  of  cigarettes  in  the  United 
States  was  reported  at  nearly  sixty-two  billion — 
enough  to  supply  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the 
country  with  six  hundred  cigarettes  each.  Seventy- 
five  per  cent  of  this  product  was  for  home  consump¬ 
tion.  These  figures  represent  an  increase  of  nearly 
four  hundred  per  cent  since  1914,  although  they  take 
no  account  of  the  hundreds  of  millions,  or  billions,  of 
hand-rolled  cigarettes  which  are  being  used  each  year. 

We  are  not,  at  the  moment,  discussing  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  the  cigarette,  but  rather  trying  to  indi¬ 
cate  something  of  the  feasibility  of  radically  modify¬ 
ing  the  acts  and  habits  of  large  bodies  of  youth  when 
once  society  undertakes  to  lay  a  new  ideal  upon  them. 
So  amazing  a  result  would  never  have  been  attained 
in  this  particular  field  had  it  not  been  for  the  fact 
that  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  persons  concerned 
were  still  in  the  plastic  period  of  life.  And  this  in¬ 
cludes,  of  course,  not  alone  the  young  men  who  were 
in  the  army,  but  also  those  millions  of  youths  who, 
too  young  for  military  service,  saw  in  the  soldier  their 
ideal  of  manhood  and,  in  so  far  as  it  was  possible  to 
do  so,  copied  his  habits  of  speech  and  action. 

IN  TIMES  OF  PEACE 

Nor  has  the  experience  of  the  government  been 
limited  to  the  time  of  war.  It  was  the  Agricultural 
Department  that  first  discovered  the  boy  and  later  the 
girl.  For  years  it  had  been  trying  to  deal  with  adults, 


14  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

but  it  was  uphill  business  trying  to  teach  a  seasoned 
farmer  anything  new  or  even  to  convince  him  that 
possibly  he  was  not  doing  everything  exactly  as  it 
should  be  done.  The  situation  was  clearly,  but  un- 
premeditatedly  stated  by  one  old  farmer  who,  when 
asked  to  attend  a  farmers’  institute  where  the  rotation 
of  crops  and  the  conservation  of  soil  values  were  to 
be  discussed,  replied:  “Why  should  I  go?  What  can 
them  white-collared  folks  learn  me  about  farming? 
I’ve  worn  out  three  farms  in  my  lifetime.” 

What,  indeed,  could  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
do  for  such  a  man  and  the  millions  of  others  like  him? 
Then  someone  thought  of  the  farm  boy;  corn  clubs 
began  to  be  organized;  any  boy  over  ten  years  of  age 
was  eligible;  and  things  began  to  happen.  One  boy, 
using  new  methods,  raised  as  much  corn  on  one  acre, 
because  he  was  still  teachable,  as  his  father  raised  on 
eight  acres  by  the  old  methods.  The  boy  began  right 
and  did  not  have  so  much  to  unlearn  as  his  father. 
Then  Jerry  Moore  raised  228  bushels  of  corn  on  a 
single  acre  of  land  in  South  Carolina.  Within  three 
years  after  that  the  corn  crop  in  South  Carolina 
jumped  from  seventeen  million  to  fifty  million  bushels. 
Little  wonder  that  Jerry  Moore  became  so  famous  that 
a  Sunday-school  pupil  when  questioned  about  Jere¬ 
miah  said  to  his  teacher,  “I  don’t  know  anything  about 
Jeremiah,  but  I  know  all  about  Jerry  Moore.” 

Jerry  Moore,  a  mere  boy,  increased  the  average 
corn  yield  per  acre  of  every  one  of  the  fifteen  southern 
states.  Or  perhaps  we  are  wrong,  possibly  it  was  not 
Jerry  Moore  at  all,  but  the  man  who  had  the  brilliant, 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


15 


but  simple,  idea  of  getting  at  the  agricultural  problem 
through  the  teachable  farm  boy  rather  than  through 
the  unteachable  adult  farmer,  fixed  in  his  habits  of 
thought  and  action. 

To  multiply  illustrations  is,  perhaps,  of  little  avail. 
The  point  which  we  are  trying  to  make  clear  is  that, 
while  the  fixity  of  maturity  is  God’s  way  of  giving 
stability  to  society  and  of  enabling  us  to  consolidate 
and  maintain  our  gains,  the  hope  for  a  better  future 
lies  in  the  plasticity  of  youth, — and  there  is  no  other 
hope.  By  this  sign  we  must  conquer — or  we  must 
confess  defeat. 

EVERY  PRESENT  SITUATION  HAS  ITS  ROOTS  IN  THE  PAST 

Every  perplexing  situation  which  we  face  today  has 
its  roots  in  the  past,  and  if  we  follow  them  far 
enough,  we  come,  sooner  or  later,  to  the  heart  and 
life  of  a  child.  The  founder  of  Mohammedanism  was 
once  a  little  child,  and  had  the  Christian  Church  been 
alert,  he  might  have  become  a  mighty  power  for  the 
extension  of  Christianity.  Instead,  today  we  have 
Islam,  a  great  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  the  gos¬ 
pel.  Joe  Smith  was  once  a  small  boy,  but  his  family 
was  one  of  the  marginal  families  living  just  on  the 
edge  of  the  community  life,  and  so  no  one  thought 
Joe  Smith  worth  saving.  But  Joe  Smith  was  able  to 
start  a  movement  which,  under  the  leadership  of  a 
stronger  man,  was  destined  to  become  a  perplexing 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  our  national  life.  Such 
men  do  not  “just  happen.”  They  are  the  normal 
product  of  environment  and  training — or  lack  of  it. 


16 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


Not  long  ago  the  nation  was  shocked  by  the  revela¬ 
tions  of  the  doings  of  a  certain  star  of  the  “movie” 
world.  Loud,  indeed,  was  our  condemnation.  Yet, 
more  fitting  it  might  have  been  for  us  to  have  bowed 
in  humility  under  the  conviction  of  social  sin,  for  as 
one  read  the  story  of  that  life  from  childhood  up,  there 
appeared  written  on  every  page  the  supreme  tragedy 
of  a  neglected  childhood.  Society  was  the  particeps 
criminis  here  as  in  the  majority  of  lives  similarly  foul 
and  unworthy. 

Nor  do  such  men  as  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Lvman 
Abbott,  Sheldon  Jackson,  and  all  those  others  who 
have  helped  and  are  helping  to  make  our  country 
what  it  is,  “just  happen.”  They  too  were  once  boys, 
and  the  lofty  ideals  dominating  them  had  their  roots 
far  back  in  that  distant  boyhood.  Little  wonder  that 
we  have  the  story  of  the  old  man  who,  many  years 
ago,  when  visiting  a  boys’  school,  removed  his  hat  and 
bowed  low,  saying,  “I  do  not  know  what  great  man 
there  may  be  among  them,  and  I  wish  to  honor  him.” 

Far-reaching,  indeed,  are  the  possibilities  bound  up 
in  the  heart  and  life  of  a  child;  but  whether  the  native 
endowment  be  small  or  great,  the  sobering  fact  re¬ 
mains  that  at  a  very  early  age  a  permanent  set  will 
be  given  to  the  life,  and  we  have  the  determining  vote 
as  to  what  that  set  will  be.  Such  is  the  responsibility 
that  is  thrust  upon  us,  and  such  the  rare  privilege  that 
our  Maker  shares  with  us.  For  both  our  successes 
and  our  failures,  we  are  held  accountable.  The 
America  that  is  today,  with  all  its  ideals  and  all  its 
glory  and  with  all  its  ignorance,  vice,  and  shame,  is 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


17 


but  the  natural  product  of  our  youth  of  yesterday, 
and  the  America  that  is  to  be  will  not  be  determined 
at  some  point  ten,  twenty,  thirty  years  distant.  It  is 
being  determined  here  and  now,  and  we,  the  parents 
and  teachers  of  the  girls  and  boys  of  America,  are 
shaping  its  destiny.  By  no  fatalistic  philosophy  of  life 
can  we  longer  escape  our  responsibility.  The  America 
of  the  future  is  to  be  determined  by  the  things  which 
we,  individually  and  socially,  build  into  the  young  life 
of  the  present. 

Possibly  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  press  home 
this  point  so  persistently  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that, 
up  to  date,  the  Christian  Church  has  largely  failed  to 
acknowledge  its  validity.  It  has,  on  the  one  hand, 
not  entirely  ignored  its  youth,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  has  failed  to  take  seriously  the  task  of  building  the 
kingdom  through  them.  If  one  is  inclined  to  doubt 
the  accuracy  of  this  statement,  he  has  but  to  study  the 
architecture  of  a  thousand  churches  picked  at  random 
from  any  part  or  all  parts  of  the  country;  or  he  may 
examine  the  budgets  of  those  same  thousand  churches; 
or  he  may  investigate  the  kind  of  courses  which  the 
ministers  of  those  churches  took  when  they  were  pre¬ 
paring  for  their  tasks. 

THE  FUNDAMENTAL  POSITION  OF  THE  HOME 

And  what  is  true  of  the  Church  in  this  regard  is 
true  of  that  most  fundamental  of  all  social  institutions, 
the  home.  That  the  home  has  failed  either  to  under¬ 
stand  or  to  measure  up  to  its  responsibility  is  clear. 
The  development  of  our  social  machinery  has  fur- 


18 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


nished  an  excuse  for  parents  to  throw  off  upon  out¬ 
side  agencies  responsibilities  which  must,  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case,  devolve  upon  the  home.  The  home 
circle  is,  after  all,  the  place  where  the  child  spends  the 
greatest  number  of  hours,  and  this  is  particularly  true 
during  the  first  six  or  seven  years  of  the  child’s  life — 
years  which  are,  without  doubt,  the  most  important 
of  all  in  his  training.  If  he  is  not  taught  to  obey  in 
the  home,  he  is  not  likely  to  learn  that  art  outside  of 
the  home.  If  parents  are  not  able  to  instil  high  ideals 
of  conduct  and  attitudes  of  respect  and  reverence,  the 
chance  of  the  child’s  attaining  these  ideals  or  acquiring 
these  attitudes  from  other  sources  is  relatively  slight. 
Nowhere  are  more  ideal  conditions  for  molding  young 
lives  provided  for  us  than  in  the  home,  and  upon  no 
social  institution  does  such  heavy  responsibility  rest 
as  upon  the  home. 

As  our  discussion  proceeds,  we  shall  have  much  to 
say  about  those  community  agencies  which  deal  with 
the  life  of  the  child.  Throughout,  however,  we  must 
bear  in  mind  that  in  matters  of  child  welfare,  play, 
work,  and  particularly  in  the  field  of  religious  and 
moral  training,  the  place  of  the  home  is  fundamental, 
and  the  responsibilities  of  the  parent  in  these  matters 
can  never  be  satisfactorily  assumed  by  any  community 
agency,  regardless  of  its  efficiency. 

WHO  ARE  THESE  YOUNG  PEOPLE  AND  WHERE  DO 

THEY  LIVE? 

If,  then,  we  have  made  it  clear  that  America’s  fu¬ 
ture  is  wrapped  up  in  her  present-day  girls  and  boys, 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


19 


we  may  well  pause  to  consider  who  and  what  and 
where  these  young  folk  are. 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  determine  just  when  the 
boy  becomes  the  man  or  the  girl  has  really  become  the 
woman.  All  sorts  of  artificial  boundaries  have  been 
set  up,  but  for  the  moment  we  may  consider  that  vast 
army  of  young  life  up  to  and  including  the  age  of 
twenty-four  years.  The  census  reveals  to  us  that  more 
than  half  of  our  population  is  included  in  this  group 
— fifty-two  and  one  half  million  young  people,  every 
one  still  in  the  plastic,  formative  period  of  life,  and 
not  one  over  twenty-four  years  of  age!  Sufficient  in 
numbers  they  would  be  to  replace  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  our  twenty-two  states  west  of  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi,  in  Canada,  and  in  most  of  Mexico. 

Even  though  we  were  to  reduce  the  limit  and  in¬ 
clude  in  our  consideration  only  those  young  people 
who  are  nineteen  years  of  age  or  under,  we  should 
still  have  a  larger  number  in  our  group  than  is  rep¬ 
resented  by  the  entire  present  population  of  France. 
In  other  words,  we  could  replace  the  entire  population 
of  a  country  the  size  of  France  with  our  girls  and 
boys,  not  one  over  nineteen  years  of  age,  not  one  old 
enough  to  vote.  The  very  thought  of  such  an  army 
of  youth  in  our  nation  is  enough  to  make  us  pause, 
and  as  we  pause,  we  reflect  that  this  is  the  America 
that  is  to  be.  This  group  includes  the  husbands  and 
wives,  the  fathers  and  mothers,  the  teachers,  the 
voters,  the  office-holders,  the  doctors,  the  lawyers,  the 
ministers,  the  business  men,  the  farmers,  the  labor 
leaders,  the  capitalists,  the  paupers,  the  grafters,  the 


20 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


crooks,  the  murderers,  and  all  the  other  adventurers 
of  the  generation  to  come.  With  the  exception  of  a 
certain  number  of  individuals  whom  we  shall  import 
from  other  countries,  they  are  all  here. 

Some  of  them  live  in  homes  of  wealth;  many  more 
exist  in  dirt  and  squalor  and  poverty.  Some  have 
parents  of  culture,  education,  and  refinement;  millions 
have  parents  who  cannot  read  and  write  in  any  lan¬ 
guage.  Some  of  these  girls  and  boys  have  bed-rooms 
of  their  own,  with  pictures  on  the  walls,  and  with  their 
personal  possessions  at  hand,  where  they  may  dress 
and  undress  in  private,  and  conduct  their  personal 
devotions  unobserved;  uncounted  numbers  live  in  one- 
room  cabins  or  in  other  crowded  quarters,  where  every 
function  of  life  must  be  performed  with  the  other 
members  of  the  family  at  hand,  and  where  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  modesty  and  the  virtues  which  go  with  it  is 
made  most  difficult.  Some  live  in  tenement  houses  in 
great  cities,  some  in  mining  shacks,  some  in  rough 
board  cabins,  some  in  log  cabins,  some  in  adobe  huts, 
some  in  tepees,  some  in  pueblos,  some  in  house-boats, 
and  some  in  tents  and  box-cars. 

From  the  standpoint  of  race,  as  indicated  by  com¬ 
plexion,  these  girls  and  boys  range  through  the  entire 
scale,  from  the  blonde  Anglo-Saxon  to  the  blackest 
African,  including  many  shades  of  red  and  yellow 
and  brown — all  potential  citizens,  Americans  in  the 
making. 

And  what  sort  of  scenes  do  these  boys  and  girls 
look  out  upon  today  and  every  day?  Some  of  them 
know  nothing  but  the  noisy  and  dirty  canyon  of  a  city 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


21 


street;  others  have  never  seen  a  city  of  any  sort. 
Some  look  out  upon  the  great  towering  peaks  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains;  the  eyes  of  others  have  never 
known  anything  but  the  vast  rolling  plains.  Some 
are  accustomed  to  the  green  grass  and  the  green  trees; 
other  boys  and  girls  gaze  out  each  morning  upon  end¬ 
less  stretches  of  gray,  dry  sage-brush.  Some  go  to 
sleep  each  night  with  the  roll  of  the  ocean  waves  in 
their  ears;  others  have  never  seen  a  body  of  water 
larger  than  a  mud-hole. 

Thus  we  might  continue  to  suggest  the  infinite 
variety  of  circumstances  which  surround  these  girls 
and  boys  of  America  and  in  the  midst  of  which  they 
live  and  grow.  And  were  we  to  include,  as  we  should, 
the  nearly  a  million  girls  and  boys  to  be  found  under 
the  American  flag  in  Alaska,  Hawaii,  and  Porto  Rico, 
— not  to  mention  our  other  possessions, — we  should 
but  add  a  multitude  of  details  to  a  picture  already  too 
varied  and  too  complicated  for  us  quite  to  understand 
it  all. 

These  girls  and  boys  constitute  America’s  hope. 
With  all  of  their  limitations,  with  all  of  their  natural 
endowments,  they  are  the  America  of  the  future  in 
process  of  formation.  And  we  are  the  ones  who  direct 
and  control  the  process.  To  build  out  of  this  infinite 
variety  of  young  life  a  society  which  shall  be  worth 
the  building,  more  worthy  than  anything  that  the  past 
has  produced,  that  is  our  task  as  members  of  society, 
as  Christians. 

We  would  not  for  a  moment  imply  that  as  citizens 
and  as  Christians  we  have  in  the  past  ignored  our 


22 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


young  folk.  Far  from  it.  Our  extended  public  school 
systems,  our  Sunday-schools,  and  our  great  variety  of 
young  people’s  organizations  are  a  definite  testimony 
to  the  contrary.  We  have  done  much,  and  the  reward 
of  our  achievement  is  a  challenge  to  greater  endeavor. 

FACTS  REVEALED  BY  THE  WAR 

The  War,  which  has  been  held  responsible  for  many 
things,  did  show  to  us  some  things  about  ourselves 
which  were  worth  learning.  Indeed,  we  learned  more 
in  that  short  time  than  perhaps  ever  before  in  our  his¬ 
tory.  Some  of  the  revelations  distinctly  disturbed  our 
self-complacency.  We  learned,  for  example,  that  a 
disgracefully  large  proportion  of  our  young  men  were 
physically  unfit  for  military  service.  And  we  were  told 
that  a  very  large  percentage  of  the  physical  defects  re¬ 
vealed  might  have  been  corrected  if  we  had  cared  for 
the  bodies  of  our  boys  and  girls  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
their  growth.  To  be  sure  we  did  not  rear  our  boys 
to  become  soldiers,  but  when  they  attempted  to  enter 
military  service,  we  discovered  some  of  the  handicaps 
under  which  they  had  been  laboring  in  times  of  peace. 

Then,  too,  we  discovered  that  while  we  had  been 
boasting  about  our  public  school  systems,  we  had  in 
America  a  proportion  of  illiterates  several  times 
greater  than  we  had  been  led  to  believe.  We  found 
an  appalling  number  of  our  young  men  who  could  not 
read  or  write  in  any  language,  and  many  more  who 
had  once  had  some  training  in  these  arts,  but  who  had 
long  since  ceased  to  practise  them. 

Further,  we  had  our  attention  called  to  the  fact  that 


Ipllpg 


SNAP-SHOTS  OF  RURAL  LIFE 

Through  schools  and  churches,  the  organizing  of  clubs,  and 
providing  outlets  for  the  play  instinct,  new  interests  are  being 
introduced  into  the  lives  of  the  youth  in  our  rural  districts,  and 
the  barrenness  of  life  in  the  country  is  thereby  relieved.  Rais¬ 
ing  a  prize  sheep  or  growing  crops  under  expert  supervision 
has  transformed  the  outlook  of  many  a  country  youth. 


BY  WAY  OF  THE  STREET 

These  citizens-in-the-making  are  the  normal  product  of  their 
environment.  When  a  child  is  forced  to  spend  his  leisure  time 
on  the  street,  the  community  is  sure  to  suffer  serious  conse¬ 
quences  as  a  result.  Playgrounds  and  recreation  programs  are 
cheap  and  effective  forms  of  social  insurance. 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


23 


an  overwhelming  proportion  of  our  young  life  is  re¬ 
ligiously  illiterate.  Our  young  men  were  not  even  in¬ 
telligently  informed  as  to  what  Christianity  is,  what 
its  tenets  are,  or  what  the  church  is  trying  to  do  in 
the  world.  This,  too,  came  as  somewhat  of  a  sur¬ 
prise.  For  years  we  had  pointed  to  the  overwhelming 
proportion  of  our  church  members  who  had  come  into 
the  church  from  the  Sunday-school.  This  had  en¬ 
gendered  a  false  feeling  of  satisfaction  with  our 
efforts  and  had  helped  us  to  forget  that  literally  mil¬ 
lions  of  our  girls  and  boys  never  get  into  Sunday- 
school  at  all  and  that,  of  those  who  do  connect  with 
a  Sunday-school  at  some  time,  we  lose  irrevocably  the 
larger  proportion  after  a  few  weeks  or  a  few  months 
or  even  years  of  such  contact. 

The  facts  that  we  have  learned  have,  indeed,  been 
of  the  sort  to  keep  a  thoughtful  person  awake  at  night. 
It  has  become  increasingly  evident  that,  unless  we  can 
get  a  fresh  grip  upon  our  task,  the  future  of  our  na¬ 
tion  is  in  very  great  danger,  not  at  the  hands  of  mili¬ 
tary  or  naval  enemies,  but  from  the  more  insidious 
forces  which  work  from  within.  Professor  Walter  S. 
A'thearn  has  wisely  said,  “There  are  just  two  influ¬ 
ences  that  can  effect  the  undoing  of  democracy,  and 
those  two  influences  are  ignorance  and  Godlessness  ” 
These  are  our  dangers.  The  rising  generation  is  our 
hope. 

That  we  are  in  real  danger,  few  who  are  acquainted 
with  the  facts  will  deny.  Even  our  President  was 
moved  to  call  for  the  observance  of  “National  Educa¬ 
tion  Week/’  It  was  well  that  he  did,  for  we  have 


24 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


reached  a  critical  moment  in  our  educational  develop¬ 
ment,  a  moment  when  to  stand  still  is  to  retreat.  And 
this  we  mean,  not  in  any  metaphorical  sense,  but  liter¬ 
ally.  Take  a  single  illustration.  We  are  faced  with 
the  hard  fact  that  a  given  amount  of  money  will, 
today,  build  a  poorer  schoolhouse,  provide  less  ade¬ 
quate  equipment,  and  hire  a  poorer  teacher  than  it 
would  several  years  ago.  What  is  to  be  done  about 
it?  Shall  we  stick  to  our  former  scale  of  expenditures 
and  thus  retreat?  Shall  we  increase  our  expenditures 
enough  to  hold  our  own?  Shall  we  take  hold  of  the 
job  and  do  it  because  it  needs  to  be  done  and  pay  the 
bill?  These  are  a  few  of  the  questions  confronting 
our  communities  today  in  the  field  of  education,  and 
the  answers  which  are  given  will  determine  whether 
we  are  to  have  a  literate  or  an  illiterate  America. 
Fundamentally,  it  is  a  question  of  whether  we  think 
the  job  is  worth  while  and  whether  we  are  willing  to 
pay  the  cost  in  terms  of  money  and  consecrated  hu¬ 
man  energy.  Will  the  American  people  get  the  vision, 
community  by  community,  and  do  the  job? 

In  the  case  of  the  Church,  the  situation  is  similar 
in  many  of  its  aspects.  By  our  very  form  of  govern¬ 
ment  the  teaching  of  religion  is  kept  out  of  our  public 
schools.  If  religion  is  to  be  taught,  it  must  be  done 
by  the  home  and  the  Church.  And  religion  must  be 
taught.  The  very  security  of  our  society  depends 
upon  it.  In  some  respects,  however,  the  Church  is  in 
more  serious  embarrassment  than  the  State,  for  the 
Church,  in  general,  lacks  both  the  buildings  and  the 
equipment  for  its  work,  and,  up  to  date,  it  has  had 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


25 


small  place  in  its  budget  for  the  workers.  Here,  again, 
the  question  intrudes  itself,  ‘‘Will  the  Church  get  the 
vision,  and  will  it  do  the  job?” 

A  HOME  MISSION  RESPONSIBILITY 

In  this  connection  we  may  note  that  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  the  Church  rests  both  upon  those  self- 
supporting  churches  that  have  resources  sufficient  for 
their  own  needs  and  the  needs  of  the  communities  in 
which  they  serve  and  also  upon  those  home  mission 
agencies  through  which  the  Church  has  chosen  to 
reach  down  in  Christian  ministry  to  those  thousands 
of  communities  that  are  not  equal  to  the  tasks  which 
confront  them. 

For  many  years  the  work  of  general  home  mission 
boards  was  largely  that  of  church  extension.  The 
rapid  settlement  of  our  country  forced  this  program 
upon  home  mission  agencies.  The  characteristic 
worker  of  this  era  was  the  frontier  missionary,  the 
itinerant  preacher,  and  the  evangelist;  and  the  char¬ 
acteristic  home  of  the  work  was  a  one-room  building 
with  four  walls  and  a  roof  and  an  inside  arrangement 
devised  to  accommodate  an  audience  and  a  preacher. 
As  time  has  passed,  the  frontier  has  doubled  upon 
itself  until  it  has  lost  its  geographic  entity.  It  is  no 
longer  in  the  West,  the  East,  the  North,  or  the  South; 
— instead,  it  is  everywhere.  No  longer  is  it  the  new 
community  which  causes  the  chief  anxiety  of  home 
mission  executives;  instead,  it  is  the  old  community 
with  its  many  people  and  its  multiplied  complexities. 
New  York  City,  one  of  our  earliest  settlements,  with 


26 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


its  millions  of  people  and  its  billions  of  productive 
capital,  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  and  the  most  difficult 
home  mission  field  which  we  have,  and  what  is  true 
of  New  York  is  true,  in  proportion,  of  scores  of  our 
great  cities  in  which  the  Church  has  been  fighting  a 
losing  battle  and  where,  in  some  cases,  its  continued 
existence  is  seriously  threatened. 

Face  to  face  with  these  tremendous  difficulties — 
particularly  that  of  dealing  with  enormous  groups  of 
people  of  foreign  birth  or  parentage  and  of  foreign 
language — and  with  an  ever  increasing  field  of  respon¬ 
sibility,  the  home  mission  boards  of  the  country  have, 
almost  unconsciously,  worked  out  a  radically  new 
method  of  handling  their  task.  That  method  is  char¬ 
acterized  particularly  by  its  special  emphasis  upon 
work  with  girls  and  boys,  and  it  is  evidenced  by  the 
building  of  altogether  new  types  of  home  mission 
churches,  the  employment  of  altogether  new  types  of 
home  mission  workers,  and  the  adoption  of  altogether 
new  programs  of  work.  Today  kindergartens,  day 
nurseries,  children’s  clinics,  girls’  clubs  and  boys’  clubs 
of  every  character,  mothers’  clubs,  gymnasium  classes, 
school-day  lunches,  visiting  nurses,  daily  vacation 
Bible  schools,  week-day  religious  instruction,  evening 
classes  of  many  sorts,  industrial  classes  for  boys  and 
girls  after  school  hours,  summer  camps,  and  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  other  related  activities  having  to  do  with  the 
welfare  of  girls  and  boys  are  an  accepted  and  daily 
part  of  the  regular  routine  of  many  home  mission 
churches,  settlements,  and  other  community  institu¬ 
tions  directed  by  home  mission  agencies. 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


27 


This  sort  of  work  is  going  on  today  in  all  our  great 
cities  from  Boston,  New  York,  and  Baltimore  on  the 
east  to  New  Orleans,  El  Paso,  Los  Angeles,  San 
Francisco,  Portland,  and  Seattle  on  the  south  and  west. 
What  may  be  more  surprising  to  the  uninitiated,  how¬ 
ever,  is  the  fact  that  a  remarkably  similar  program 
may  be  found  in  communities  forty  or  fifty  miles  from 
the  railroad  in  the  mountains  of  New  Mexico,  in  our 
Appalachian  highlands,  and  in  hundreds  of  other  rural 
home  mission  centers  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The 
day  of  a  new  home  missions  has  already  dawned,  but 
the  amazing  extent  and  effectiveness  of  the  work  is 
not  always  well  understood. 

The  future  of  America  and  the  future  of  American 
Christianity  will  ultimately  be  determined  by  what 
takes  place  in  what  have  been  called  our  marginal  com¬ 
munities.  These  are  the  communities  which  for  one 
reason  or  another  are  not  sufficient  unto  themselves 
to  meet  the  demands  that  the  hour  makes  upon  them. 
This  inability  may  be  due  to  spiritual  poverty  and 
want  of  vision  as  well  as  to  economic  lack.  But  what¬ 
ever  its  cause,  it  immediately  becomes  a  matter  of  vital 
concern  to  all  of  us.  It  is  in  these  communities  that 
the  home  mission  boards  of  the  country  find  their  field 
of  labor. 

And  where  are  they?  Not  in  any  one  state,  but  in 
all  of  them.  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  congested 
and  polyglot  areas  of  our  great  cities;  in  the  decadent 
rural  communities  of  New  England;  in  the  Negro 
communities  and  mountain  sections  of  the  South;  in 
the  hundreds  of  mining  and  coke  towns  in  Pennsyl- 


28  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

vania  of  from  five  hundred  to  two  thousand  popula¬ 
tion  each,  some  of  which  have  a  population  of  prac¬ 
tically  one  hundred  per  cent  of  foreign  birth;  in  the 
sage  brush  country  of  Montana;  in  the  deserts  of 
Arizona,  among  the  American  Indians;  among  our 
enormous  Spanish-speaking  population  of  the  South¬ 
west;  and  in  Porto  Rico,  Alaska,  and  Hawaii.  These 
are  a  few  of  the  sections  of  a  broad  front  along  which 
the  future  of  America  is  being  determined,  and  in 
every  one  of  these  places  the  line  is  being  held  by 
home  mission  agencies.  Sometimes  the  line  is  thin 
indeed,  but  were  it  not  for  these  agencies,  there  would 
often  be  no  line  at  all.  And  the  hope  of  holding  that 
line  depends  upon  our  ability  to  deal  effectively  with 
the  rising  generation. 

Already,  without  ostentation  or  the  waving  of  flags, 
home  mission  agencies  have  put  into  actual  operation 
the  most  extensive  program  of  religious  education 
which  has  ever  been  undertaken  by  any  general  agency 
or  group  of  agencies  in  the  United  States.  This  is  no 
disparagement  of  other  general  agencies  whose  names 
might  seem  to  suggest  a  closer  relationship  to  the  work 
of  the  Sunday-school  and  religious  education  in  gen¬ 
eral  than  home  mission  boards  may  be  supposed  to 
have;  most  of  those  very  worthy  and  greatly  needed 
organizations  have  been  charged  with  other  duties 
than  that  of  the  actual  work  of  religious  education, 
with  boys  and  girls.  The  point  that  we  are  trying 
to  make  clear  here  is  that  it  is  upon  distinctly  home 
mission  agencies  that  the  responsibility  has  usually 
fallen  for  constructing  buildings  suitable  for  purposes 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


29 


of  religious  education  in  the  communities  which  have 
not  been  able  to  provide  these  facilities  locally,  of 
employing  workers  who  understand  the  work  of  re¬ 
ligious  education,  and  then  of  getting  from  the 
churches  the  funds  for  maintaining  the  work. 

One  can  scarcely  imagine  a  greater  calamity  to  the 
work  of  religious  education  in  this  country  than  to 
have  the  distinctly  home  mission  agencies  suddenly 
deprived  of  support.  Such  an  unthinkable  contin¬ 
gency  would  mean  the  collapse  of  the  work  of  re¬ 
ligious  education  in  thousands  of  our  most  needy 
centers  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other.  We 
would  not  for  a  moment  infer  that  the  home  mission 
agencies  are  meeting  the  full  needs  of  our  marginal 
communities  in  this  respect.  Far  from  it.  It  chances 
that  the  present  writer  has  just  returned  from  visiting 
villages  with  populations  totaling  many  thousands  of 
souls  where  there  is  no  church  or  Sunday-school,  either 
Catholic  or  Protestant.  There  are  too  many  such 
places.  We  are  trying  rather  to  emphasize  the  fact 
that  so  far  as  the  need  is  being  met,  it  is  by  the 
churches  through  their  home  mission  agencies;  and, 
for  the  most  part,  the  work  is  of  an  increasingly  high 
order. 

Not  long  ago  the  pastor  of  an  outstandingly  cul¬ 
tured  and  prosperous  church  in  a  noted  suburban  com¬ 
munity  said,  after  inspecting  at  first  hand  the  work  in 
religious  education  in  an  Italian  mission  in  one  of  our 
large  cities,  “That  mission  has  a  more  carefully 
planned  and  executed  program  of  religious  education 
for  its  Italian  children  than  I  have  for  the  children 


30 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


in  my  own  church.”  Unfortunately  the  remark  could 
not  truthfully  be  made  with  reference  to  all  Italian 
missions,  but  the  incident  is  significant  as  indicative 
of  the  ideals  toward  which  home  mission  agencies  are 
working  and  which  they  are  achieving  as  adequate 
resources  are  placed  at  their  disposal. 

Space  will  not  permit  us  to  go  further  into  detail 
at  this  point  or  to  emphasize  the  large  contribution 
which  the  home  mission  agencies  are  making  in  the 
field  of  children’s  welfare,  club  work,  recreational 
work,  and  related  activities,  although  there  is  much 
that  might  be  said.  We  should,  however,  add  a  spe¬ 
cial  word  concerning  those  large  and  immensely  effec¬ 
tive  agencies  for  religious  nurture  and  training  of 
young  life  commonly  known  as  the  women’s  home 
mission  boards.  Different  denominations  have  dif¬ 
ferent  plans  of  operation,  but  in  general  the  work  of 
the  women’s  home  mission  agencies  falls  into  two 
categories — school  work  and  community  work  of  one 
sort  or  another.  These  agencies  are  spending  many 
millions  of  dollars  each  year  for  work  in  the  United 
States,  and  practically  all  of  this  immense  sum  goes 
directly  for  work  with  girls  and  boys  or  indirectly  to 
them  through  work  with  their  mothers.  The  school 
work  is,  of  course,  almost  exclusively  work  with 
youth,  and  in  the  community  houses,  settlements,  in¬ 
stitutional  churches,  and  similar  institutions  for  which 
the  women’s  boards  supply  workers,  the  particular 
assignment  of  those  workers  is  almost  invariably  that 
of  work  with  girls  and  boys  or  with  mothers.  Among 


AMERICA’S  GREATEST  ASSET 


31 


national  agencies  for  children’s  welfare  and  religious 
education,  the  women’s  boards  of  home  missions  stand 
either  at  the  top  of  the  list  or  well  toward  it  in  regard 
to  the  amount  of  money  expended  each  year,  the 
number  of  workers  employed,  and  the  number  of 
girls  and  boys  in  needy  communities  reached.  This 
work  extends  from  Alaska  to  the  Mexican  border  and 
from  Porto  Rico  to  Hawaii.  There  is  no  outstand¬ 
ingly  needy  group  in  all  our  more  than  one  hundred 
million  population  which  is  not  feeling  the  direct  min¬ 
istry  of  these  exceedingly  effective  agencies  for  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  rising  generation. 

If  this  book  can  in  any  way  lead  to  a  more  adequate 
support  of  home  mission  agencies  on  the  part  of  indi¬ 
viduals  and  of  local  churches,  the  labor  which  it  has 
involved  will  not  have  been  in  vain.  The  purpose  of 
the  book,  however,  is  somewhat  broader  than  that.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  many  individuals  in  places  not 
classed  as  home  mission  communities  will  find  here  a 
challenge  to  give  more  earnest  heed  to  the  welfare  of 
the  girls  and  boys  in  their  respective  communities,  and 
that  parents  will  be  led  to  study  with  far  greater  care 
the  methods  by  which  they  can  make  the  life  in  the 
home  render  that  fine  contribution  to  the  youthful 
members  of  it  which  no  community  agency  can  ever 
bestow. 

A's  the  discussion  proceeds,  it  may  not  be  feasible 
at  all  points  to  indicate  just  where  distinct  home  mis¬ 
sion  responsibility  begins  and  ends.  The  work,  how¬ 
ever,  is  one,  and  the  task  of  making  America  Christian 


32 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


in  the  full  and  best  sense  of  that  term  is,  after  all,  the 
great  home  mission,  regardless  of  the  particular  agency 
through  which  it  may  chance  to  be  accomplished. 

A  SUMMARY 

Thus  far  in  this  discussion  we  have  tried  to  empha¬ 
size  the  supreme  importance  of  plastic  young  life  in 
God’s  plan  for  making  a  new  and  better  world  with 
our  cooperation.  We  have  attempted  to  indicate  the 
responsiveness  of  youth  to  new  ideas  and  new  ideals 
and  to  contrast  it  with  the  fixity  and  conservatism  of 
maturity.  We  have  undertaken  to  picture  the  vast 
army  of  girls  and  boys  who,  with  all  their  abilities  and 
limitations,  are  America’s  one  hope.  We  have  ven¬ 
tured  to  suggest  some  of  the  things  which  the  War  has 
revealed  to  us.  We  have  raised  the  question,  partly 
for  future  consideration,  as  to  whether  we  have  the 
vision  of  the  need  and  are  willing  to  pay  the  price  for 
putting  through  to  completion  the  task  which  is  laid 
upon  us,  and  we  have  called  attention  to  the  strategic 
position  occupied  by  home  mission  agencies  in  dealing 
with  the  critical  situations  to  be  found  in  our  neediest 
and  most  neglected  communities.  In  other  chapters 
we  shall  go  more  into  detail  in  connection  with  some 
of  the  subjects  already  raised,  and  we  shall  undertake 
to  indicate  some  of  the  points  at  which  we  should 
attempt  to  make  the  America  that  is  to  be  a  better 
place  than  the  America  that  is. 


CHAPTER  II 
Saving  Young  Bodies 

On  the  sixth  day  of  April,  1918,  there  was  inau¬ 
gurated  in  the  United  States  a  movement  known  as 
the  “Children’s  Year”  campaign.  It  was  started  as 
a  war  measure,  and  in  a  public  letter  President  Wilson 
described  it  as  “second  only  in  importance”  to  supply¬ 
ing  the  immediate  needs  of  the  combatants.  The  aim 
of  the  movement  was  to  save  the  lives  of  100,000 
babies  during  the  year. 

Are  the  implications  of  that  campaign  and  its  aim 
clear?  If  a  bureau  of  the  United  States  Government 
could,  with  its  special  knowledge  of  the  facts,  delib¬ 
erately  set  out  to  save  the  lives  of  100,000  babies  in 
a  single  year,  it  does  not  require  particular  brilliance 
of  imagination  to  draw  a  terrible  picture  of  the  enor¬ 
mous,  unnecessary  slaughter  of  the  innocents  which 
has  been  going  on  and  still  is  going  on  in  this  country. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  practically  a  quarter  of  a  million 
babies  under  one  year  of  age  die  in  the  United  States 
annually.  Physicians  tell  us  that  at  least  half  of  these 
might  be  saved  by  the  application  of  known  principles 
of  hygiene  and  infant  care.  If,  then,  to  put  it  con¬ 
servatively,  more  than  100,000  infants  die  unneces¬ 
sarily  in  the  United  States  each  year,  it  is  evident  that 
these  babies  are  killed.  Certainly  they  do  not  die  of 
their  own  accord.  Their  lives  are  taken  by  the  things 
which  are  done  to  them  and  which  ought  not  to  be 

done  or  by  the  things  which  ought  to  be  done  and  are 

33 


34 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


not  done.  They  are  very  largely  sacrificed  to  the  twin 
gods  of  Ignorance  and  Poverty. 

Compared  to  the  total  number  of  unnecessary 
infant  deaths  in  the  United  States  for  a  single  year, 
our  entire  military  losses  in  the  World  War  seem 
small,  and  when  a  series  of  years  is  taken  into  ac¬ 
count,  these  war  losses  sink  into  insignificance.  In 
ten  years  the  number  of  babies  who  die  unnecessarily 
in  the  United  States  would  repopulate  five  of  our 
present  states  with  enough  left  over  to  create  a  good- 
sized  city  in  addition.  At  present  the  most  dangerous 
occupation  in  this  country  is  that  of  being  a  baby. 

COMPARISON  WITH  OTHER  COUNTRIES 

The  fact  is  that  for  a  people  supposed  to  be  among 
the  leading  nations  of  the  world  in  matters  of  enlight¬ 
enment,  our  record  is  far  from  satisfactory.  In 
Russia,  we  are  told,  one  baby  out  of  every  four  dies 
before  completing  its  first  year  of  life.  Russian 
mothers  love  their  babies,  but  the  “mother  instinct” 
does  not  keep  them  from  making  mistakes  in  diet  that 
cause  their  children’s  deaths.  In  the  United  States  one 
baby  out  of  every  ten  dies  before  reaching  its  first 
birthday.  Yes,  that  is  better  than  the  Russian  record; 
but  in  New  Zealand  only  one  baby  in  twenty  dies  in 
the  first  year  of  life. 

The  reason  for  this  situation  in  New  Zealand  is 
worthy  of  note.  In  1872  the  infant  death-rate  in  that 
country  was  approximately  the  same  as  the  present 
rate  in  the  United  States.  Since  that  year  the  death- 
rate  has  steadily  declined.  Since  1900  the  decline  has 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


35 


been  particularly  rapid.  Attention  has  been  called  to 
the  fact  that  the  decline  during  the  last  decade  is  spe¬ 
cially  noteworthy  inasmuch  as  a  marked  decline  in  the 
death-rate  during  the  early  stages  of  the  effort  to  re¬ 
duce  it  is  more  easily  attained  than  after  the  rate  has 
been  materially  reduced.  New  Zealand  mothers  are 
no  more  devoted  to  their  offspring  than  are  American 
mothers,  and,  in  many  respects,  they  are  no  better  in¬ 
formed  than  women  in  the  United  States.  They  have, 
however,  learned  much  more  about  the  care  and  feed¬ 
ing  of  infants  than  have  mothers  in  the  United  States, 
and,  by  the  application  of  this  knowledge,  they  have 
succeeded  in  reducing  the  infant  mortality  rate  to  48.4 
per  1,000,  or  less  than  half  the  infant  death-rate  in 
the  United  States. 

ENORMOUS  LOSSES 

The  figures  for  the  United  States  also  show  some 
important  variations  in  the  rate  in  various  sections 
of  the  country  and  among  different  race  groups  in  the 
same  section.  Thus,  in  1920  the  infant  death-rate 
varied  from  61.2  in  the  state  of  Washington  to  141 
in  North  Carolina.  The  rate  for  New  York  State 
was  92.2.  In  Maryland  the  rate  for  white  babies  was 
90  and  the  rate  for  colored  babies  143.  In  Virginia 
the  rate  for  white  babies  was  81  and  the  rate  for 
colored  babies  was  157,  while  in  North  Carolina  the 
rate  for  white  babies  was  93  and  for  colored  babies 
187.  Among  cities,  Pittsburg  lost  more  babies  in 
proportion  to  its  births  than  any  other  of  the  large 
American  cities  for  which  reliable  records  are  avail- 


36  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

able.  One  baby  in  every  nine  born  in  Pittsburg  failed 
to  survive  throughout  the  year ;  in  Boston  the  rate  was 
one  in  ten;  in  Philadelphia  one  in  eleven;  in  New 
York  one  in  twelve;  and  in  Seattle  one  in  eighteen. 

But  we  must  not  imagine  that  we  have  got  to  the 
bottom  of  the  matter  when  we  have  tabulated  the 
number  of  lives  lost  in  infancy.  Far  from  it,  for  in¬ 
fant  mortality  is  perhaps  the  most  sensitive  index  we 
possess  of  social  welfare  and  of  sanitary  organization 
and  administration.  To  quote  a  well-known  English 
authority:  “Excessive  mortality  in  infancy  implies 
excessive  mortality  in  later  life.  The  environment 
which,  because  of  bad  housing,  bad  sanitation, — 
domestic  or  municipal, — a  low  degree  of  social  prog¬ 
ress  in  general,  reacts  unfavorably  on  infant  life,  is 
the  environment  responsible  for  a  low  state  of  health 
and  vitality  in  all  classes  of  the  population.  More¬ 
over,  those  children  who,  because  of  superior  resist¬ 
ance,  do  live  to  maturity,  are  often  seriously  impaired 
in  health.  The  infants  who  are  injured  by  the  un¬ 
favorable  environment  into  which  they  are  born 
number  two  or  three  times  as  many  as  those  who  die. 
The  survivors  of  infant  mortality,  it  has  been  de¬ 
clared,  bear  in  their  bodies  the  marks  of  its  causes 
and  conditions/’ 

Of  this  secondary  toll  exacted  from  society,  we  had 
been  more  or  less  blissfully  unconscious  until  the  reg¬ 
istration  and  examination  of  our  young  men  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  carrying  out  of  the  war  plans  re¬ 
vealed  the  fact  that  one  third  of  them  were  so  mark¬ 
edly  physically  defective  as  to  disqualify  them  for 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


37 


military  service.  What  the  results  would  have  been 
had  an  equal  number  of  girls  been  examined  it  is  im¬ 
possible  to  say.  We  wakened,  however,  to  a  sense 
of  our  physical  deficiencies.  The  fact  that  we  were 
told  by  reputable  physicians  that  a  very  large  propor¬ 
tion  of  the  defects  could  have  been  remedied  or  avoided 
altogether  by  proper  attention  during  childhood  only 
added  to  our  humiliation.  How  serious  is  the  handi¬ 
cap  under  which  we  labor  is  perhaps  suggested  by  the 
statement  issued  by  the  National  Child  Welfare  Asso¬ 
ciation  that:  “Of  the  20,000,000  American  school 
children  between  six  and  fifteen  years  of  age,  one  mil¬ 
lion  have  defective  hearing,  five  million  have  defective 
eyes,  five  million  are  mal-nourished,  six  million  have 
enlarged  tonsils  or  adenoids,  and  over  ten  million  have 
defective  teeth.  In  short,  three  quarters  of  them  suf¬ 
fer  from  preventable  or  curable  defects.” 

FOOD  AND  LACK  OF  FOOD 

Perhaps  there  is  no  more  insidious  foe  to  the  child’s 
physical  well-being  than  that  of  malnutrition,  and  none 
less  thoroughly  understood  by  parents.  Until  some¬ 
what  recently,  it  was  generally  supposed  that  mal¬ 
nutrition  was  a  condition  limited  to  those  children 
whose  parents  lacked  the  means  to  buy  them  a  suffi¬ 
cient  quantity  of  food.  But  we  have  been  forced  to 
abandon  so  naive  a  theory.  Malnutrition  may  result 
from  a  variety  of  causes,  and  hundreds  of  children 
whose  parents  are  able  to  buy  food  are  continually 
undernourished  because  of  ignorance  or  neglect.  For 
the  reason  that  malnutrition  causes  little  or  no  pain,  we 


38 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


are  likely  to  ignore  or  to  be  unaware  of  its  presence, 
while  it  goes  steadily  on  exacting  its  terrible  toll. 
That  undernourishment  has  become  one  of  our  serious 
national  problems  is  generally  conceded. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  that  when  a  child 
three  weeks  old  is  fed  on  cabbage ;  another  seven  weeks 
old  is  kept  for  days  in  succession  on  sausage,  bread, 
and  pickles;  and  a  third  six  weeks  old  is  fed  on  sar¬ 
dines  and  vinegar,  something  is  radically  wrong.  Be¬ 
tween  these  real,  though  absurd,  practises  and  the 
ideal  diet  for  a  well-nourished  child  there  are  many 
gradations  of  folly. 

The  Children’s  Bureau  of  the  United  States  Gov¬ 
ernment  says:  “Insufficient  or  unsuitable  food  and 
drink,  such  as  tea  and  coffee  instead  of  milk,  is  gen¬ 
erally  conceded  to  be  the  chief  cause  of  undernutri¬ 
tion.  The  first  requirement  of  a  growing  child  is 
food.  Every  movement  his  body  makes,  every  bit  of 
work  it  does,  requires  energy,  and  loss  of  weight  re¬ 
sults.  It  is  essential,  therefore,  that  the  diet  of  a 
growing  child  should  be,  first  of  all,  generous  in 
amount.  An  insufficient  and  inadequate  breakfast  of 
bread  and  coffee  practically  always  means  too  little 
food,  whether  or  not  the  midday  meal  is  adequate,  or 
even  though  a  hearty  supper  may  be  eaten.  Indul¬ 
gence  in  sweets  and  highly  seasoned  foods,  habitual 
eating  between  meals,  late  hours,  unventilated  sleeping- 
rooms,  and  lack  of  exercise  may  all  result  in  a 
ffinicky’  appetite,  and  thus  in  taking  too  little  food.” 

There  are  other  perils,  however,  besides  that  of 
taking  too  small  a  quantity  of  nourishment.  One  is 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


39 


the  improper  selection  of  foods.  We  know  today,  as 
we  have  not  known  before,  that  certain  foods  are  well- 
nigh  indispensable  to  the  nourishment  and  proper 
growth  of  children.  Eggs,  leafy  vegetables,  and  milk 
contain  elements  which  are  essential,  and  other  foods 
will  not  supply  the  lack  regardless  of  the  quantities 
in  which  they  are  taken.  For  practical  purposes  the 
entire  question  of  the  adequate  nourishment  of  chil¬ 
dren  often  comes  down  to  the  simple  problem  of  se¬ 
curing  a  sufficient  supply  of  fresh  milk.  Thus  the 
cow  is  often  the  solution  of  the  perplexing  problem, 
and  workers  in  certain  sections  of  the  country  are  try¬ 
ing  to  meet  the  situation  by  encouraging  the  keeping 
of  the  “family  cow.” 

Of  course  this  solution  can  be  applied  only  in  the 
rural  districts;  but,  curiously  enough,  it  is  in  the  rural 
regions — particularly  in  the  “single-crop”  sections — 
that  malnutrition  works  its  most  diabolic  havoc.  It  is 
one  of  the  ironies  of  fate  that  it  is  much  easier  to  get 
an  abundant  supply  of  fresh  milk  in  many  cities  than  it 
is  in  vast  areas  of  our  rural  regions. 

However,  the  problem  of  undernourishment  is  not 
limited  to  the  country.  An  examination  of  171,661 
school  children  in  New  York  City  led  recently  to  the 
following  estimates:  that  of  the  1,000,000  school  chil¬ 
dren  in  the  city,  173,000  were  normally  nourished; 
611,000  were  passable;  and  216,000  were  seriously 
undernourished.  No  one  knows  just  how  many  chil¬ 
dren  throughout  the  country  are  in  this  last-named 
class,  but  competent  medical  authorities  place  the  fig¬ 
ure  at  between  three  and  five  million. 


40 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


Possibly  we  can  best  understand  what  is  involved 
in  this  problem  of  malnutrition  if  we  think  for  a 
moment  of  the  characteristics  of  the  well-nourished 
child.  We  are  told  that  a  properly  nourished  child 
measures  up  to  racial  and  family  standards  in  height 
and  weight;  he  has  good  color;  his  step  is  elastic;  his 
flesh  is  Ann;  he  is  usually  happy  and  good-natured; 
he  is  full  of  life  and  constantly  active  both  physically 
and  mentally;  his  sleep  is  sound;  his  appetite  and  di¬ 
gestion  are  good;  he  is  what  nature  intended  him  to 
be,  a  happy,  healthy  young  animal. 

To  something  like  this  every  child  born  into  the 
United  States  has  a  right.  The  tragedy  is  that  in  this 
land  of  bumper  crops  multitudes  of  children  are  con¬ 
tinually  in  a  state  of  malnutrition;  that  in  a  country 
that  boasts  of  its  enlightenment,  so  many  innocent 
victims  are  sacrificed  each  year  upon  the  altar  of 
ignorance;  that  in  a  land  where  justice  is  supposed 
to  rule,  we  systematically  condemn,  unheard,  so  large 
a  proportion  of  our  helpless  children  to  lives  of  weak¬ 
ness,  disease,  and  inefficiency;  that,  in  the  face  of  this 
wrong,  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  said,  “Of 
such  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,”  should  be  so  little 
concerned  about  it  all. 

The  old  Mosaic  law  made  bold  to  declare,  “Thou 
shalt  not  kill.”  Jesus  said,  speaking  of  the  little  child 
who  had  been  called  to  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  as¬ 
sembled  crowd,  “Whoso  shall  cause  one  of  these  little 
ones  that  believe  on  me  to  stumble,  it  is  profitable  for 
him  that  a  great  millstone  should  be  hanged  about  his 
neck,  and  that  he  should  be  sunk  in  the  depth  of  the 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


41 


sea.”  With  such  words  from  the  great  head  of  the 
Church  ringing  in  their  ears,  the  followers  of  Him 
who  went  about  doing  good,  cleansing  the  lepers,  heal¬ 
ing  the  sick,  restoring  sight  to  the  blind,  giving  hear¬ 
ing  to  the  deaf,  and  raising  the  dead,  must  be  dull 
indeed  if  they  do  not  find  in  every  undernourished, 
thin,  flabby,  delicate,  listless  child,  and  in  every  child 
suffering  from  decayed  teeth,  adenoids,  enlarged  ton¬ 
sils,  or  other  physical  handicap,  a  challenge  to  service. 

CARRYING  OUT  A  TASK  BEGUN  BY  JESUS 

Jesus  believed  in  saving  people’s  bodies — not  as  a 
sort  of  advertising  demonstration  to  attract  public  at¬ 
tention,  but  because  bodies  were  worth  saving  in  them¬ 
selves.  It  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
for  Him  who  came  “that  they  might  have  life  and 
that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly”  to  be  tre¬ 
mendously  concerned  about  matters  of  physical  well¬ 
being.  It  was  not  surprising  that  when  such  a  leader 
drew  his  one  picture  of  the  last  judgment,  He  raised 
the  question  of  the  attitude  of  his  followers  toward 
the  sick  and  helpless,  and  then  added,  “Inasmuch  as 
ye  did  it  not  to  one  of  the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  not 
to  me.”  Surely  the  heart  of  Jesus  would  be  touched 
by  the  children  who  never  have  enough  to  eat ;  by  those 
who  have  the  wrong  kinds  of  food;  by  those  who  are 
killed  by  unclean  milk;  by  those  who,  because  of  the 
congestion  in  our  great  cities,  suffer  for  want  of  light 
and  air  and  a  chance  to  play;  by  the  Negro  babies 
who,  in  some  sections,  die  at  a  rate  twice  as  fast  as 
that  of  the  white  children  in  the  same  sections;  by  the 


42 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


multitude  of  Mexican  babies  in  our  great  Southwest 
who  are  murdered  by  improper  food  and  unsanitary 
surroundings;  by  the  crowds  of  boys  and  girls  whose 
lives  are  blighted  by  adenoids;  by  the  many  who  suffer 
from  poor  vision;  by  the  children  in  industries  who 
are  physically  deformed  or  otherwise  injured  by  their 
long-continued  and  arduous  labors;  in  fact,  by  the  piti¬ 
able  condition  of  any  child  who  is  forced  to  assume 
the  responsibilities  of  life  under  any  one  of  the  count¬ 
less  limitations  from  which  he  might  have  been  saved 
had  the  followers  of  the  Man  of  Galilee  taken  seriously 
the  task  which  He  began  so  long  ago. 

One  can  scarcely  conceive  of  a  more  important, 
more  fundamental,  and  more  thoroughly  Christian 
task  for  a  Christian  Church  than  that  of  insuring  an 
abundant  life  to  the  children  who,  at  its  very  doors, 
are  today  deprived  of  that  boon.  Fortunately  we  have 
many  churches  which  have  already  caught  the  vision 
and  are  working  earnestly  and  effectively  at  the  task. 

One  church  in  a  home  mission  field  in  a  great  city 
has  ready  on  each  school  day  a  nourishing  lunch  which 
may  be  purchased  at  a  nominal  price  by  definitely 
selected  pupils  whose  homes  have  been  visited  and 
who  are  thus  known  to  be  suffering  from  malnutri¬ 
tion.  The  children  come  eagerly,  and  this  single 
nourishing  meal  is  meaning  for  them  the  difference 
between  adequate  and  inadequate  nourishment,  be¬ 
tween  strength  and  weakness,  and  between  physical 
efficiency  and  inefficiency.  Another  home  mission 
church  with  the  cooperation  of  a  friend,  distributes 
eighty  pints  of  milk  to  needy  families.  A'  mission 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


43 


at  work  among  the  Mexicans  in  the  Southwest 
gathers  the  little  children  each  day  and  supplies  them 
with  clean,  wholesome  milk.  This  simple  ministry 
saves  from  disease  and  death  children  who  would 
otherwise  fall  an  easy  prey  to  contagious  maladies. 
Every  day  thousands  of  children  in  home  mission  day 
nurseries  and  kindergartens  are  receiving  milk  and 
ether  nourishing  food.  Thus  is  the  Church  carrying 
out  literally  the  words  of  Him  who  said,  “Feed  my 
lambs.” 

Many  churches  conduct  clinics  where  children  suf¬ 
fering  from  all  manner  of  disease  and  abnormality 
are  received  for  examination,  advice,  and  treatment. 
Some  carry  on  parents’  classes  where  definite  train¬ 
ing  in  the  care  and  feeding  of  children  is  presented. 
Others  are  giving  much  needed  instruction  in  sexual 
hygiene.  An  increasing  number  of  home  mission 
churches  provides  gymnasium  classes  with  trained 
teachers,  playgrounds  with  trained  supervisors,  and 
other  sorts  of  health-giving  recreation.  Some  main¬ 
tain  milk  stations,  and  some  employ  visiting  nurses 
or  other  workers,  who  assist  in  establishing  sanitary 
conditions  and  in  promoting  correct  health  habits  in 
the  homes  of  the  children. 

Many  churches  maintain  mothers’  clubs,  where  much 
wholesome  and  healthful  information  concerning  the 
care  of  children  is  disseminated.  A  number  of  home 
mission  boards  support  doctors  and  nurses  in  the  more 
neglected  sections  of  the  country  where  the  emphasis 
is,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  upon  the  care  of 
mothers  and  children  and  the  maintaining  of  proper 


44 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


conditions  in  the  home.  Fortunately,  too,  thousands 
of  ministers  both  in  the  country  regions  and  in  the 
cities  have  come  to  feel  that  one  of  their  first  con¬ 
cerns  is  to  help  in  the  creating  of  such  community 
habits  and  ideals  as  will  make  it  possible  for  children 
to  have  a  fair  chance  at  life.  Without  extra  staff 
helpers,  they  are  doing  a  vast  amount  of  educational 
work  which  is  producing  results  in  terms  of  lives  saved. 

In  addition  to  the  enormous  amount  of  work  that  is 
being  done  through  home  mission  churches,  we  must 
take  into  account  the  hundreds  of  church  hospitals  and 
homes  scattered  in  all  parts  of  the  country  which  are 
ministering  to  the  sick,  the  orphaned,  and  the  neglected. 

Then,  too,  there  is  an  important  and  constructive 
piece  of  work  that  is  being  done  in  scores  of  home 
mission  schools  where  girls  are  being  trained  in  the 
selection  and  preparation  of  foods,  in  the  arranging 
of  menus,  and  in  many  other  activities  which  make 
for  the  building  of  home  life  and  for  the  conservation 
of  the  lives  of  helpless  children  in  the  home.  In  this 
way  thousands  of  homes  are  being  reached  in  which 
firm  foundations  are  laid  for  the  future.  The  work 
includes  many  groups — Negroes,  Indians,  Mexicans  in 
the  United  States,  Spanish-Americans,  and  others. 
How  many  lives  have  been  saved  both  directly  and  in¬ 
directly  by  this  constructive  ministry,  no  one  can  say, 
but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  number  is 
large.  Surely  a  ministry  that  trains  the  mothers  of 
the  children  who  are  to  be  is  fully  as  Christian  in 
spirit  and  even  more  statesmanlike  in  policy  than  that 
which  confines  its  attention  to  the  undernourished, 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


45 


sick,  and  handicapped  offspring  of  the  ignorant  moth¬ 
ers  that  now  are. 

CHRISTIAN  WOMEN  MINISTER  TO  THE  NEEDY 

A'  special  type  of  ministry  to  neglected  children  grew 
directly  out  of  the  surveys  of  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement.  Those  surveys  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
groups  of  migrant  laborers  in  the  country  were  not 
made  up  entirely  of  men;  that  thousands  of  women 
and  children  were  continually  shifting  from  one  sea¬ 
sonal  industry  to  another.  Sometimes  it  was  the  berry 
fields  which  demanded  help,  sometimes  the  canneries, 
then  again  the  oyster  fields,  and  so-  on  through  a  con¬ 
siderable  list.  And  following  these  varied  industries 
were  many  families  that  included  in  their  membership 
little  children  who  never  knew  an  established  home, 
and  who  lived  under  the  most  unsanitary  conditions. 
These  children  were  unclean,  they  were  inadequately 
fed,  and  upon  the  most  unsatisfactory  food,  and  they 
were  neglected  from  early  morning  till  night  during 
the  years  when  they  most  needed  attention.  The  fol¬ 
lowing  picture  drawn  by  Mrs.  DeWitt  Wallace  gives 
some  idea  of  the  conditions  revealed : 


The  berry  season  is  in  full  swing,  and  the  crowded  little 
shacks  are  all  a  bustle  of  life  by  five  in  the  morning.  The 
family  have  a  scanty,  hurried  breakfast,  and  the  older  members 
are  off  to  the  hot  fields  to  fill  the  crates  that  we  look  for  in 
the  markets  the  following  morning.  As  the  sun  climbs  higher 
in  the  heavens,  the  heat  seems  almost  unbearable,  and  the  chil¬ 
dren,  who  have  followed  the  parents  up  and  down  the  monot¬ 
onous  rows  of  berries,  seek  the  shade  of  the  surrounding  build¬ 
ings  and  often  fall  asleep  there.  The  noon  hour  comes,  and 
there  is  neither  time  nor  energy  to  cook  a  substantial  meal,  so 
a  loaf  of  bread  and  some  coarse  molasses  is  the  substitute. 
The  afternoon  wears  on,  and  the  little  children — boys  and  girls 


46 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


from  the  age  of  a  few  months  to  ten  or  twelve  years,  with  no 
supervision  and  no  one  even  knowing  where  they  are — amuse 
themselves  as  best  they  know  how  until  dark. 

If  this  condition  only  lasted  for  the  few  weeks  of  the  berry 
season,  it  could  possibly  be  counteracted  by  the  influences  of  the 
rest  of  the  year.  But  this  is  just  one  round  in  the  cycle  of  the 
year,  for  when  the  berry  season  closes,  vegetables  are  ready; 
then  the  general  migration  for  these  foreign  people  is  to  the 
oyster  beds  and  canneries,  where  a  similar  or,  in  many  cases, 
a  worse  condition  arises.  No  schooling,  no  constructive  play, 
no  ideals  for  future  citizenship,  and  no  standards  of  law  and 
order.  The  influences  of  the  home,  the  church,  the  school,  and  a 
normal  community  life  are  absolutely  lacking. 


It  was  not  surprising  that  this  situation  touched 
the  hearts  of  the  home  missionary  women  of  Amer¬ 
ica  and  that  they  began  to  minister  to  some  of  these 
needy  and  neglected  children.  Unwashed  babies  tor¬ 
mented  by  countless  flies  were  washed  and  protected. 
Supervised  games  took  the  place  of  demoralizing 
activities  for  the  older  children,  and  nourishing  hot 
soup,  real  bread  and  butter,  and  big  pitchers  of  genu¬ 
ine  cow’s  milk  took  the  place  of  bread  and  molasses. 
Again  the  results  of  the  work  in  terms  of  the  fuller, 
richer  life  which  Jesus  came  to  give  cannot  be  set 
down  in  tables,  but  they  are  none  the  less  real  and 
abiding. 

The  amount  of  work  which  home  missions  and 
self-supporting  churches  have  done  to  save  the  bodies 
of  helpless  children  is  so  large  in  the  aggregate  that  we 
could  very  easily  hypnotize  ourselves  with  our  achieve¬ 
ments.  We  would  hardly  be  fair  to  ourselves,  how¬ 
ever,  if  we  did  not  recognize  the  fact  that  the  things 
which  have  been  done  have  been  small  in  comparison 
to  the  things  which  have  been  left  undone.  In  Chris¬ 
tian  America  we  have  by  our  efforts  saved  the  lives 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


47 


of  little  children  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands,  while 
by  our  neglect  we  have  slaughtered  them  by  millions. 
Hundreds  of  churches  have  done  nobly,  but  thousands 
of  other  churches  have  done  nothing  at  all.  Hun¬ 
dreds  of  Christians  have  worked  sacrificially  at  the 
task  of  saving  the  bodies  of  our  children,  while  thou¬ 
sands  of  others  have  never  once  seriously  thought  of 
the  need  or  their  obligation  to  meet  it.  It  is  unques¬ 
tionably  true  that  the  Christian  churches  of  America 
could,  during  the  present  year, — and  without  disturb¬ 
ing  their  current  program, — save,  by  educational 
methods  without  direct  philanthropy,  the  lives  of  scores 
of  thousands  of  children.  The  information  and  mate¬ 
rials  needed  for  such  a  task  are  available,  and  the 
methods  necessary  have  been  tested  by  use. 

So  long  as  human  lives  are  being  needlessly  sacri¬ 
ficed,  the  responsibility  for  correcting  the  situation 
must  rest  upon  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ.  So  long 
as  there  is  one  undernourished,  diseased,  or  handi¬ 
capped  child  in  the  community,  the  responsibility  for 
that  condition  must  rest  upon  the  Church  until  the 
Church  has  done  all  within  its  power  to  remedy  the 
matter.  Every  ignorant  mother,  every  unwashed 
child,  every  bottle  of  dirty  milk,  every  condition  of 
every  sort  which  threatens  the  life  or  well-being  of 
little  children  is  a  challenge  to  the  followers  of  Him 
who  said,  “Lovest  thou  me?  .  .  .  Feed  my  lambs.” 

THE  WHITE  HOUSE  CONFERENCE 

Fortunately  other  agencies  are  at  work  at  the  task, 
and  much  has  already  been  accomplished.  President 


48 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


Roosevelt  gave  perhaps  the  first  great  impulse  to  the 
work  when  he  called  the  famous  White  House  Con¬ 
ference  on  Child  Welfare.  That  conference  met  in 
Washington  in  January,  1909.  About  two  hundred 
delegates  were  invited.  They  represented  every  state 
in  the  Union.  President  Roosevelt  himself  presided. 
The  report  of  the  committee  on  resolutions  that  was 
adopted  at  this  gathering  contained  fourteen  articles, 
and  out  of  the  work  of  this  conference  have  grown 
many  important  results.  One  of  these  was  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  the  Federal  Children’s  Bureau  which,  through 
intensive  and  extensive  studies,  has  sought  to  ascer¬ 
tain  the  facts  concerning  the  wastage  of  infant  life. 
The  Bureau  has  charted  a  hitherto  unknown  land  and 
has  placed  some  very  startling  facts  before  the  Amer¬ 
ican  people.  It  has  also  created  a  literature  for  the 
guidance  of  parents  and  others  concerned  with  mat¬ 
ters  of  child  welfare  that  is  at  once  so  scientific  and 
so  simple  of  content  that  we  can  never  again  excuse 
the  distressing  conditions  which  we  have  permitted  to 
exist  on  the  plea  that  we  lack  information  as  to  proper 
methods  of  procedure. 

FACTS  REVEALED  BY  THE  CHILDREN’S  BUREAU 

One  of  the  striking  facts  revealed  by  the  studies 
of  the  Children’s  Bureau  was  that  of  the  close  rela¬ 
tion  between  infant  wastage  and  poverty.  Thus  it 
was  discovered  that  in  families  where  the  father’s 
earnings  were  ten  dollars  or  less  a  week,  the  infant 
death-rate  was  twice  as  great  as  in  families  whose  in¬ 
come  approached,  in  the  days  before  the  War,  one 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


49 


hundred  dollars  per  month.  In  community  after 
community  the  facts  revealed  were  so  similar  that  a 
social  principle  came  to  be  established  with  something 
of  mathematical  certainty;  namely,  that  of  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  the  wastage  of  infant  life  to  conditions  of  pov¬ 
erty  in  the  home. 

In  some  cases  the  facts  discovered  were  far  more 
startling  than  the  figures  just  quoted  would  seem  to 
indicate.  In  one  place  it  was  found  that  the  death- 
rate  for  artificially  fed  babies  was  eleven  times  greater 
where  the  father’s  earnings  were  under  $550  per  year 
than  they  were  when  the  father  received  $1,850  per 
year  or  more.  In  other  words,  the  babies  born  into 
the  poorer  homes  in  that  city  and  fed  artificially  had 
only  one  eleventh  the  chance  to  survive  as  had  those 
babies  born  into  the  more  comfortable  homes  and  also 
fed  artificially.  In  the  same  city,  the  breast-fed  babies 
in  the  poorer  homes  had  one  third  the  chance  to  live 
that  babies  similarly  fed  in  the  better  homes  had. 
These  and  other  facts  brought  clearly  into  relief  the 
dangers  of  improper  feeding  of  infants. 

In  New  York  City  the  establishment  of  infant  wel¬ 
fare  stations  reduced  the  infant  death-rate  two  thirds, 
resulting  in  the  saving  of  multiplied  thousands  of  lives 
each  year.  From  another  source  comes  the  informa¬ 
tion  that  the  introduction  of  pasteurized  milk  into  a 
certain  foundling  asylum  reduced  the  number  of  in¬ 
fant  deaths  from  524  one  year  to  255  the  next,  and 
that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  number  of  babies  in 
the  institution  had  been  materially  increased  in  the 
meantime.  Both  our  babies  and  our  boys  and  girls 


50 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


of  tender  years  are  starved  for  pure  milk  and  the  leafy 
vegetables  which  have  been  found  to  be  indispensable 
to  their  welfare.  We  are  told  that  we  have  five  times 
as  many  undernourished  children  today  as  we  had  a 
few  years  ago.  Whether  this  is  true  or  not,  it  is  cer¬ 
tain  that  the  situation  is  serious  enough  to  demand 
radical  treatment. 

THE  CARE  OF  MOTHERS 

Another  result  which  has  grown  out  of  the  White 
House  Conference  is  a  renewed  appreciation  of  the 
importance  of  caring  for  the  mother  both  before  and 
after  the  birth  of  the  child.  That  the  mother  needs 
such  care  both  before  and  after  childbirth,  not  alone 
for  her  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  her  children,  is 
apparent.  While  but  six  countries  have  a  more  favor¬ 
able  infant  death-rate  than  has  the  United  States,  in 
the  mortality  rate  for  mothers  from  conditions  caused 
by  childbirth  the  United  States  stands  seventeenth  in 
the  list.  Italy,  the  Netherlands,  Sweden,  Norway, 
Russia,  Finland,  Japan,  England  and  Wales,  Hungary, 
France,  Ireland,  Spain,  Switzerland,  Australia,  Scot¬ 
land,  and  New  Zealand  all  stand  ahead  of  our  own 
country. 

What  is  even  more  alarming  is  the  fact  that  while 
conditions  in  this  particular  have  been  improving  in 
other  countries,  they  have  grown  steadily  worse  in  the 
United  States.  In  1915  the  death-rate  of  mothers 
from  conditions  connected  with  childbirth  was  6. 1 ; 
in  1916  it  was  6.2;  in  1917  it  was  6.6;  in  1919  it  was 
7.4.  In  1918  the  rate  was  9.2.  This  exceptionally 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


51 


high  rate  was  partly  accounted  for  by  the  prevalence 
of  influenza.  In  1917  childbirth  caused  more  deaths 
among  women  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  forty- 
four  than  did  any  other  disease  except  tuberculosis. 
In  that  year  it  caused  more  than  five  times  as  many 
deaths  as  did  typhoid  fever.  And  the  great  majority 
of  these  deaths  were  entirely  preventable.  We  have 
made  gains  along  other  lines,  but  not  here. 

Not  only  is  this  loss  appalling  in  itself,  but  it  has 
a  very  important  bearing  upon  the  saving  of  the  babies. 
The  death-rate  among  motherless  babies  is  enormous, 
in  one  city  amounting  to  five  times  that  of  the  rate 
for  babies  with  mothers.  How  easily  large  and  im¬ 
portant  results  can  be  secured  in  this  field  is  demon¬ 
strated  by  the  work  of  the  New  York  Maternity  Cen¬ 
ter  Association.  Among  4,496  women  who  were 
given  intelligent  supervision  both  before  and  for  a 
month  after  the  baby  arrived,  the  proportion  of  babies 
dying  during  the  first  month  was  reduced  to  consid¬ 
erably  less  than  one  half  of  that  for  the  city  as  a  whole. 
And  this  result  was  secured  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
these  mothers  and  children  lived  under  the  usual  low- 
income  handicap.  At  the  same  time,  the  number  of 
mothers  who  died  was  reduced  to  less  than  one  third 
of  the  general  rate  for  the  entire  United  States. 

Another  benefit  which  has  grown  out  of  the  White 
House  Conference  is  a  recognition  of  the  importance 
of  making  it  possible  for  the  mother  to  care  for  her 
children  at  home  wherever  this  is  practicable,  instead 
of  committing  them  to  institutions.  To  this  end 
forty-one  states  have  already  enacted  child  welfare 


52 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


laws,  or,  as  they  are  perhaps  more  commonly  called, 
widows’  pension  or  compensation  legislation. 

Through  the  aid  provided  by  the  widows’  pension 
or  compensation  funds,  thousands  of  mothers  have 
been  enabled  to  keep  the  home  together  and  to  give 
to  their  offspring  the  motherly  attention  which,  with¬ 
out  this  state  aid,  would  have  been  delegated  to  an 
institution.  For  a  large  number  of  other  children  in¬ 
stitutional  life  has  been  avoided  by  finding  foster 
homes  for  them.  This  is  one  of  the  most  radical  de¬ 
partures  in  the  care  of  dependent  children  which  this 
country  has  Known,  and  it  has  already  meant  much  in 
the  lives  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  children  who 
would  otherwise  have  been  consigned  to  institutions. 
Through  the  formation  of  child  welfare  organizations 
all  over  the  country,  the  administration  of  the  funds 
devoted  to  this  sort  of  work  has  been  made  most  eco¬ 
nomical,  while  at  the  same  time  a  local  community 
conscience  for  and  interest  in  existing  conditions  of 
need  has  been  developed. 

OTHER  AGENCIES 

An  agency  which  is  doing  much  for  the  children 
of  America  through  its  educational  work  and  its  varied 
publications  is  the  National  Child  Welfare  Associa¬ 
tion.1  This  Association  directs  public  interest  to  the 
physical,  mental,  and  moral  welfare  of  children,  keeps 
in  touch  with  legislation  and  social  progress  in  child 
welfare,  and  cooperates  with  and  strengthens  the  work 
of  all  organizations  having  child  welfare  for  their 

1  Headquarters  are  at  70  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City. 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


53 


object.  It  prepares  and  issues  for  sale  excellent 
posters,  picture  panels,  and  other  graphic  material 
dealing  with  prenatal  care,  infant  and  child  care,  the 
growth  of  the  child  through  play,  study,  work,  read¬ 
ing,  and  training  in  morals,  civics,  and  religion,  and 
kindred  topics.  It  furnishes  speakers,  lecturers,  and 
organizers.  It  also  publishes  many  helpful  books 
(see  Bibliography).  For  sets  of  posters  to  be  used 
in  exhibits  for  the  purpose  of  arousing  community 
interest  in  matters  of  child  welfare,  those  available 
from  this  Association  are  probably  unexcelled.  At¬ 
tention  should  also  be  called  to  the  fact  that  a  wealth 
of  pamphlet  literature  dealing  with  many  aspects  of 
child  welfare  can  be  secured  from  the  Children’s 
Bureau  in  Washington,  D.  C. 

Another  agency  which  has  made  an  important  con¬ 
tribution  in  this  field  is  the  Child  Health  Organization 
of  America.1  Its  aim  is  to  establish  correct  health 
and  food  habits  in  the  lives  of  boys  and  girls,  and  it 
works  through  public  schools  and  also  church  schools 
and  Sunday-schools  for  the  accomplishment  of  its 
aims.  It  utilizes  the  play  instinct,  and  makes  a  game  of 
the  matter  of  establishing  health  habits.  It  publishes 
attractive  graded  material  for  boys  and  girls  of  all 
ages  from  five  years  upwards.  This  material  includes 
“Watch  Your  Weight  Tags,”  “Child  Health  Alpha¬ 
bets,”  “Rules  of  the  Game,”  posters,  simple  health 
plays,  and  various  other  excellent  and  inexpensive  pub¬ 
lications  for  use  with  the  children  themselves. 

1  Headquarters  are  at  370  Seventh  Avenue,  New  York  City. 


54 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


THE  PUBLIC  HEALTH  NURSE 

The  public-health  nurse  is,  according  to  the  Chil¬ 
dren’s  Bureau,  the  keystone  of  child  welfare  work. 
She  is  the  one  who  follows  the  case  into  the  home,  and 
there  on  the  spot,  with  the  utensils  which  the  mother 
has  available  for  use,  she  teaches  the  principles  of  the 
care  of  the  baby  in  the  most  effective  way. 

How  rapidly  the  public  health  nurse  movement  has 
extended  is  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  the  number 
of  public  health  nurses  employed  has  increased  from 
130  in  1890  to  more  than  11,000  in  1922.  Although 
there  are  still  large  areas  untouched  by  the  ministry 
of  these  nurses,  they  are,  nevertheless,  at  work  today 
in  states  extending  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
and  from  New  England  to  the  Gulf.  They  are  em¬ 
ployed  by  boards  of  health,  boards  of  education,  county 
boards  of  supervisors,  industrial  companies,  anti- 
tuberculosis  associations,  women’s  clubs,  home  mis¬ 
sion  boards,  and  by  various  other  groups.  They  are 
at  work  in  communities  ranging  from  a  few  hundred 
people  upwards.  The  value  of  the  ministry  which 
they  are  rendering  is  beyond  calculation. 

By  way  of  illustration :  A  few  years  ago,  when  New 
York  City  schools  had  no  school  nurses,  only  six  per 
cent  of  the  instructions  of  the  school  doctor  were  car¬ 
ried  out.  With  the  introduction  of  school  nurses, 
who  could  follow  the  child  into  the  home  and  there 
persuade  the  parents  to  secure  proper  treatment  for 
it,  reports  showed  that  84  per  cent  of  the  physicians’ 
instructions  were  carried  out. 


WHERE  DO  THEY  LIVE  f 

Millions  of  American  girls  and  boys  live  in  cabins,  box-cars,  and  shacks  of  various 
sorts.  In  general,  the  poverty  of  the  home  environment  is  but  a  reflection  of  the  social, 
religious,  and  educational  poverty  which  dwarfs  life  at  its  very  beginning. 


Some  home  mission  churches  employ  visiting  nurses  who  visit  the  hum¬ 
blest  homes  and  there  translate  scientific  knowledge  into  simple  and  concrete 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


55 


The  public  health  nurse  not  only  cures  “backward” 
pupils  by  removing  the  cause  of  backwardness  in  the 
home,  but  she  also  strikes  at  the  very  source  of  dis¬ 
ease  through  fly  campaigns,  clean-up  weeks,  and  agi¬ 
tation  for  better  housing,  sewage  disposal,  and  milk 
inspection.  All  this  requires  a  nurse  who  has  had 
much  more  than  an  ordinary  nurse’s  training,  and  at 
least  fifteen  universities  are  now  offering  approved 
courses  for  the  post-graduate  training  of  graduate 
nurses  who  wish  to  take  up  public  health  work.  In 
this  connection  the  National  Organization  for  Public 
Health  Nursing 1  has  rendered  a  most  important  ser¬ 
vice  by  holding  up  a  high  standard  of  training  for  the 
public  health  nurse  and  by  maintaining  both  a  con¬ 
sultation  and  vocational  service  for  nurses  and  com¬ 
munities  and  also  by  acting  as  a  national  clearing 
house  for  information  relating  to  all  phases  of  public 
health  nursing. 

BETTER  TRAINED  PARENTS  ESSENTIAL 

It  would  be  difficult  to  over-emphasize  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  the  public-health  nurse.  She  can  do  much 
to  minimize  the  effects  of  poverty  in  the  homes  and 
ignorance  on  the  part  of  parents,  but  such  a  ministry 
alone  can  never  fully  satisfy  the  Christian  conscience. 
We  must  get  back  of  the  conditions  that  are,  and  find 
out  why  parents  are  allowed  to  remain  so  ignorant  in 
a  land  where  simple  scientific  facts  are  already  estab¬ 
lished  and  available,  and  why  such  distressing  poverty 
is  allowed  to  continue  in  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 

1  Headquarters  are  at  370  Seventh  Avenue,  New  York  City. 


56 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


honey.  The  question  of  the  needless  sacrifice  of  the 
lives  of  little  children,  when  followed  to  its  logical 
conclusion,  leads  us  very  close  to  the  heart  of  some 
of  the  evils  in  our  present  social  organization.  Surely 
there  must  be  something  at  fault  both  with  our  edu¬ 
cational  systems  and  with  our  economic  organization 
when  such  conditions  are  allowed  to  exist.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ  to  find  out 
the  things  that  are  wrong  and  to  set  them  right  or  die 
in  the  attempt. 

We  cannot  forget  that  many  of  these  ignorant 
parents  who  do  not  understand  the  simple  principles 
which  have  to  do  with  the  care  of  mothers  and  chil¬ 
dren  are  the  products  of  our  public  and  church  schools. 
In  those  schools  we  consider  certain  things  so  impor¬ 
tant  that  we  endeavor  to  teach  them  to  every  child. 
These  include  the  alphabet,  the  multiplication  table, 
and  other  similarly  basic  facts.  We  drill  on  these 
more  or  less  diverting  matters  until  they  are  supposed 
to  be  fixed  permanently  in  the  child’s  mind.  No  doubt 
these  things  are  important,  yet  we  have  in  the  United 
States  multitudes  of  parents  who  rarely  ever  use  the 
multiplication  table  and  whose  reading  is  so  slight  that 
it  is  practically  negligible,  but  who  never,  in  church  or 
school,  received  any  instruction  in  sex  hygiene  or  in 
the  most  important  task  in  life,  that  of  being  an  in¬ 
telligent  father  or  mother.  Yet  the  essential  facts 
concerning  the  feeding  and  care  of  infants  could  be 
presented  in  our  public  schools,  or  even  in  our  church 
schools,  and  mastered  in  far  less  time  than  is  now  con¬ 
sumed  in  conquering  the  multiplication  table.  We  are 


SAVING  YOUNG  BODIES 


57 


not  particularly  desirious  of  having  the  multiplication 
table  thrown  out  of  our  schools,  but  we  are  convinced 
that  this  matter  of  an  enlightened  parenthood  is  at 
least  of  as  much  importance,  and  should  receive  its 
due  amount  of  attention. 

A  TASK  FOR  THE  CHURCH 

It  would  seem  to  be  the  business  of  the  Church  to 
make  sure  that  this  knowledge  is  carried  to  all.  It  is 
a  part  of  the  good  news  which  Jesus  came  to  proclaim. 
Was  it  not  He  who  opened  his  ministry  in  his  home 
town  of  Nazareth  with  the  words :  “The  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  anointed  me  to  preach 
good  tidings  to  the  poor:  He  hath  sent  me  to  pro¬ 
claim  release  to  the  captives,  and  recovering  of  sight 
to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to 
proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.” 

We  are  told  that  the  race  moves  forward  on  the 
feet  of  little  children.  We  believe  this  to  be  a  fact. 
It  is  the  premise  on  which  this  chapter  is  written. 
We  have  tried  to  show  that  there  is  an  enormous  loss 
of  infant  life  and  well-being  in  America;  that  much 
of  this  appalling  loss  is  entirely  unnecessary;  that  the 
Christian  Church  could  change  these  conditions  if  it 
desired  to  do  so;  that  because  Christianity  is  what  it 
is,  we  can  never  discharge  our  responsibilities  in  this 
particular  until  we  have  done  all  within  our  power  to 
set  the  wrong  things  right.  We  have  suggested  that 
the  Church  is  already  rendering  a  large  service  in  this 
field,  but  that  it  is  falling  far  below  its  possibilities. 

There  are  certain  very  definite  things  which  local 


58 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


churches  and  individual  Christians  can  do  to  help. 
They  can  support  more  generously  the  work  which 
denominational  missionary  agencies  are  doing  among 
specialized  and  neglected  groups  in  this  country  and 
its  possessions.  They  can  assist  in  the  establishment 
of  local  child  welfare  stations  and  in  the  support  of 
public-health  nurses  for  local  communities.  They  can 
organize  or  cooperate  with  the  local  child  welfare  or¬ 
ganization.  They  can  provide  and  teach  mothers’ 
classes  in  the  local  church.  They  can  arrange  clinics 
for  the  examination  of  children.  They  can  help  to 
provide  ice  for  those  who  need  it.  They  can  insist 
on  regular  and  adequate  physical  examination  of 
pupils  in  the  public  school.  They  can  make  sure  that 
a  wholesome  and  abundant  milk  supply  is  available 
for  the  community.  They  can  cooperate  with  the  pub¬ 
lic  school  authorities  and  insist  that  adequate  instruc¬ 
tion  on  matters  of  child  welfare  be  introduced  at  the 
proper  place  in  the  school  curriculum.  They  can 
organize  classes  for  the  study  of  similar  subjects  in 
the  church  school.  In  short,  there  are  countless  ways 
through  which  the  work  can  be  carried  on. 

Our  task  will  be  complete  when  we  have  all  learned 
all  that  we  can’  learn  about  the  care  of  children,  and 
when  all  that  knowledge  is  being  utilized  in  caring  for 
every  child  born  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  and  every 
other  flag  in  all  the  world. 


CHAPTER  III 
Play  and  Work 

Did  you  ever  watch  a  group  of  boys  in  a  narrow, 
crowded  street  sit  down  on  a  much-used  sidewalk  to 
shoot  marbles,  quite  oblivious  to  the  fact  that  steady 
streams  of  traffic  were  crowding  them  from  either 
side  ?  Did  you  ever  see  an  Italian  girl  seize  the  fleet¬ 
ing  seconds  between  constantly  passing  pedestrians  to 
bounce  a  rubber  ball  against  a  narrow  space  of  brick 
between  two  windows  ?  Did  you  ever  observe  a  gang 
of  boys  on  a  crowded  thoroughfare  “shoot  craps”  for 
rusty  safety-pins,  bits  of  chalk,  useless  pieces  of  tin, 
or  broken  pencil  stubs  or,  for  that  matter,  for  real 
money  ?  Did  you  ever  visit  a  crude,  dark,  and  damp 
rendezvous  of  a  gang  of  boys,  built  in  an  impossible 
spot,  of  rotten  material  taken  from  some  building  in 
process  of  wrecking?  If  you  have  had  any  one  or 
all  of  these  experiences,  or  others  similar  to  them,  you 
have  some  idea  of  the  insistence  of  the  play  instinct  in 
life  and  the  necessity  for  its  guidance. 

We  have  sometimes  thought  of  play  either  as  a 
necessary  evil  to  be  tolerated  or  as  a  more  or  less 
harmless  pastime  for  children  too  young  to  work. 
We  have  been  slow  in  discovering  that  play  is  a  most 
essential  factor  in  God’s  plan  of  making  men  and 
women  out  of  boys  and  girls.  Play,  properly  directed, 
builds  strong  muscles,  fortifies  the  body  against  dis¬ 
ease,  quickens  the  intellect,  strengthens  the  moral  fiber, 
teaches  the  fine  art  of  cooperation  and  team -play, 

59 


60  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

lessens  immorality,  crime,  and  delinquency,  and,  in 
general,  serves  as  the  child’s  great  university  in  the 
complicated  art  of  living.  Someone  once  said,  “Man 
is  most  truly  man  when  he  plays.”  We  may  para¬ 
phrase  that  statement  and  say,  “The  child  is  most 
truly  the  child  he  ought  to  be  when  he  is  engaged  in 
wholesome,  invigorating  play.”  It  is  on  the  play¬ 
ground  that  the  child  lives  the  full  and  abounding  life 
which  is  so  necessary  to  his  present  well-being  and  his 
future  development. 

Speaking  of  the  value  of  play,  Charles  W.  Waddle 
says :  “There  is  scarcely  a  virtue  that  is  not  born  and 
reared  to  sturdy  strength  through  suitable  and  timely 
play.  Self-control,  self-direction,  capacity  to  lead, 
and  willingness  to  follow  are  necessary  virtues  learned 
nowhere  else  so  readily  and  so  surely.  Justice,  hon¬ 
esty,  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  the  necessity  for 
and  the  binding  nature  of  law,  and  all  those  principles, 
recognition  of  which  complex  social  and  industrial  life 
demands,  come  as  by-products  of  rightly  developed 
play.”  Play  is  a  spiritual  tonic.  It  gives  zest  to  all 
of  life.  The  child  who  has  not  learned  the  secret  of 
play  has  missed  something  of  very  great  importance 
from  his  life. 

OPPORTUNITIES  FOR  PLAY  NEEDED 

The  impulse  to  play  is  universal,  but  knowledge  of 
how  to  play  must  be  acquired,  and,  unfortunately, 
opportunities  for  wholesome  play  are  often  narrowly 
limited.  This  is  particularly  true  in  our  great  cities 
which  steadily  grow  larger  and  more  numerous  as 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


61 


the  years  pass.  A  few  years  ago  we  were  distinctly 
a  rural  people;  today  more  than  half  of  our  boys 
and  girls  live  in  cities,  and  a  large  proportion  in 
large  cities.  So  far  as  the  rising  generation  is  con¬ 
cerned,  this  drift  toward  the  city  means  that  a  large 
and  steadily  increasing  proportion  of  our  children  are 
growing  up  largely  separated  from  the  green  fields, 
the  brooks,  the  trees,  and  even  the  domestic  animals 
with  which  children  were  once  so  familiar.  One  is 
reminded,  by  way  of  contrast,  of  the  last  will  and 
testament  of  Charles  Lounsbury,  who  died  some  time 
ago  in  the  Cook  County  Asylum  in  Illinois.  He  said : 

That  part  of  my  interests  which  is  known  in  law  and  rec¬ 
ognized  in  the  sheep-bound  volumes  as  my  property,  being  in¬ 
considerable  and  of  no  account,  I  make  no  disposal  of  in  this, 
my  last  will. 

•  •••••• 

I  leave  to  children  exclusively,  but  only  for  the  term  of  their 
childhood,  all  and  every  flower  of  the  field  and  the  blossoms  of 
the  woods,  with  the  right  to  play  among  them  freely  according 
to  the  custom  of  children,  warning  them  at  the  same  time  against 
thistles  and  thorns.  And  I  devise  to  children  the  banks  of  the 
brooks  and  the  golden  sands  beneath  the  waters  thereof,  and 
the  odor  of  the  willows  that  dip  therein ;  and  the  white  clouds 
that  float  high  over  the  giant  trees.  And  I  leave  the  children 
the  long,  long  days  in  which  to  be  merry  in  a  thousand  ways; 
and  the  night  and  the  moon ;  and  the  train  of  the  milky  way 
to  wonder  at. 

I  devise  to  boys  jointly  the  use  of  the  idle  fields  and  commons 
where  ball  may  be  played ;  all  pleasant  waters  where  one  may 
swim ;  all  snow-clad  hills  where  one  may  coast ;  and  all  streams 
and  ponds,  where  one  may  fish,  or  where,  when  grim  winter 
comes,  one  may  skate ;  to  have  and  to  hold  the  same  for  the 
period  of  their  boyhood.  And  all  the  meadows,  with  the  clover 
blossoms  and  the  butterflies  thereof ;  the  woods  with  their  appur¬ 
tenances,  the  squirrels  and  the  birds,  the  echoes  of  strange 
noises ;  and  all  the  distant  places  which  may  be  visited,  together 
with  all  the  adventures  there  found.  And  I  give  to  the  boys 
each  his  own  place  at  the  fireside  at  night,  with  all  pictures  that 
may  be  seen  in  the  burning  wood,  to  enjoy  without  let  or  hin¬ 
drance  and  without  incumbrance  or  care. 


62  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

These  extracts  from  this  remarkable  document, 
written  by  a  penniless  man,  dying  in  a  public  institu¬ 
tion,  are  significant  in  the  present  connection  because 
they  picture  so  vividly  and  beautifully  the  environment 
of  childhood  which  once  was  characteristically  Amer¬ 
ican.  To  many  fathers  today  every  word  of  the  pic¬ 
ture  drawn  builds  visions  of  past  experiences  in  their 
own  lives,  while  to  many  sons  of  these  same  fathers 
the  words  are  meaningless. 

As  soon  as  people  insist  on  living  together  in  great 
cities,  the  problem  of  play  takes  on  greater  seriousness. 
Fortunately,  the  child’s  play  life  must  and  should  begin 
in  the  home,  but  unfortunately,  many  parents  are  un¬ 
skilled  in  the  matter  of  directing  their  children’s  play. 
There  was  a  time  when  almost  the  entire  play  life  of 
the  child  centered  about  the  home;  when,  in  addition 
to  the  outdoor  games,  dominoes,  checkers,  tiddledy 
winks,  parcheesi,  jack  straws,  and  a  host  of  other  fire¬ 
side  games  and  activities  made  the  home  the  center 
of  ever-fascinating  interest.  The  very  fact  that  many 
of  these  games  were  home-made  added  unmistakably 
to  their  value.  As  time  has  passed,  the  number  of 
available  home  games  has  steadily  increased,  but  in  the 
meantime  other  social  changes  have  been  taking  place. 
Public  amusement  has  increased  and  become  commer¬ 
cialized,  and  means  of  communication  and  transporta¬ 
tion  have  developed  until  the  home  has  many  competi¬ 
tors  in  the  field  of  play.  It  is  of  very  great  importance 
that  the  home,  which  we  have  allowed  perhaps  too 
easily  to  be  superseded  by  other  institutions,  shall  re¬ 
cover  something  of  its  lost  prestige  as  a  place  for  play. 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


63 


A  swing  in  the  back-yard,  a  trapeze  in  the  attic,  and 
the  best  room  in  the  house  set  aside  as  a  children’s 
play-room  will  help  to  some  extent  to  restore  that  pres¬ 
tige. 

It  is,  perhaps,  of  equal  importance  that  parents  shall 
endeavor  to  develop  some  definite  skill  in  directing 
and  sharing  in  home  play.  Mr.  Joseph  Lee,  a  student 
in  this  field,  has  suggested  certain  minimum  require¬ 
ments  as  essential  to  the  play  life  of  children: 

I.  The  first  requirement  of  the  play  life  of  a  child  is  a 
mother.  To  him  his  mother  is  at  once  instigator,  audience,  play¬ 
mate,  playground,  and  apparatus.  ...  A  mother  is,  of  course, 
of  no  use  to  a  child  when  he  is  locked  up  in  a  room  and  she  is 
working  in  a  factory.  By  having  a  mother,  I  mean  one  who  is 
able  to  play  a  mother’s  part. 

II.  The  next  requirement  of  a  child’s  play  is  a  home  where 
he  can  have  his  own  things  to  play  with,  his  own  place  to  keep 
them,  and  some  one  to  share  them  with  and  to  be  interested  in 
what  he  does.  More  than  half  of  our  child  wreckage  is  due  to 
broken  homes,  and  the  disaster  to  their  play  life  is  in  a  great 
part  to  blame. 

III.  Another  essential  to  the  child  from  a  very  early  age  is 
a  child  community  with  established  play  traditions.  .  .  . 

IV.  Every  child  should  have  the  equivalent  of  a  tool  house, 
a  woodshed,  and  an  attic  in  his  life,  whether  provided  by  the 
home,  the  school,  or  some  near  neighborhood  institution.  He 
must,  apart  from  any  systematic  teaching,  have  things  to  hammer 
and  cut  and  melt  and  put  together,  to  burn,  color,  and  otherwise 
deal  with  as  his  soul  leads  him.  .  .  . 

V.  Every  child  should  be  encouraged  to  make  collections  of 
stones  or  bones  or  leaves  or  some  such  objects,  and  should  be 
shielded  from  the  kind  of  nature  study  which  is  to  the  love  of 
beasts  and  flowers  what  the  study  of  anatomy  is  to  social  life. 

VI.  Every  child  should  go  through  a  period  of  having  pets — 
anything  from  white  mice  to  horses  will  do. 

VII.  Every  child  must  grow  up  in  the  presence  of  the  arts. 

VIII.  For  children  under  six  there  must  be  a  back-yard  with 
a  sand  box  and  other  things  to  play  with  and  a  little  general 
playground  in  the  block.  For  those  from  six  to  ten  there  must 
be  a  sufficient  playground,  properly  equipped  and  with  right 
leadership,  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  .  .  . 

IX.  Every  child  must  have  a  garden  in  his  home,  or  two 
months  a  year  of  life  in  the  country.  In  fact  he  ought  to  have 
the  latter  anyway,  and  will  have  to  arrange  it  with  his  mother 


64  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

or  his  aunt  or  partner  to  look  after  his  home  garden  while  he 
is  away. 

These  are  some  of  the  things  we  shall  provide  when  we  learn 
to  take  either  democracy  or  education  seriously. 

The  foregoing  are  but  suggestions  which  a  little 
ingenuity  and  imagination  on  the  part  of  the  parent 
will  enlarge  and  adapt  to  individual  circumstances. 

THE  PLAYGROUND  AND  ITS  IMPORTANCE 

The  play  life  of  the  child  begins  in  the  home,  but 
it  very  soon  begins  to  reach  outside  of  the  home  en¬ 
vironment.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  for  it  is  only  in 
these  broader  relationships  that  the  child  can  find  those 
varied  experiences  which  will  round  out  his  develop¬ 
ment  and  training.  When,  however,  the  child  lacks 
proper  home  care,  he  is  often  thrust  out  almost  as  soon 
as  he  can  walk,  or  even  before,  to  find  his  play  life 
and  his  play  world  outside  of  the  home.  Once  out¬ 
side  the  home  circle,  he  becomes  a  community  respon¬ 
sibility,  and  the  community  must  find  an  opportunity 
for  the  expression  of  the  child’s  play  instincts  or  suffer 
the  consequences.  For  a  long  time  it  was  the  habit 
of  communities  to  “suffer  the  consequences.”  Many 
a  group  of  lively  lads  with  endless  possibilities  for 
good  has  become  a  “gang”  of  toughs,  many  of  whom 
later  have  found  themselves  behind  prison  bars,  be¬ 
cause  society  has  been  so  slow  in  providing  opportu¬ 
nity  for  and  guidance  in  play.  It  has  been  truly  said 
that,  “In  retracing  the  tortuous  path  of  the  youthful 
criminal  it  is  seldom  found  that  the  trail  leads  back 
to  the  playground,  the  diamond,  the  athletic  field,  or 
the  community  center.”  Already  the  movement  for 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


65 


supplying  these  needs  has  progressed  far  enough  for 
us  to  see  the  relation  of  them  to  the  prevention  of  de¬ 
linquency  and  crime. 

The  first  organized  and  supervised  outdoor  play¬ 
ground  in  the  United  States  was  established  under 
private  auspices  in  Boston  in  1886.  Soon  the  move¬ 
ment  spread.  City  governments  began  to  waken  to  the 
need;  state  legislation  was  passed;  school  buildings 
were  opened  as  community  centers;  playgrounds  mul¬ 
tiplied;  the  need  for  recreation  among  adults  as  well 
as  children  appeared;  and  the  entire  movement  as¬ 
sumed  national  proportions.  In  1906  the  Playground 
and  Recreation  Association  of  America  was  organized, 
with  headquarters  in  New  York  City.1  A  recent  re¬ 
port  of  that  organization  indicates  that  for  the  year 
1921  there  were  502  cities  in  the  United  States  in 
which  there  were  playgrounds  under  paid  leadership. 
In  367  of  these  cities  the  work  was  supported  entirely 
or  in  part  from  municipal  funds.  Play  centers  to  the 
number  of  4,584  were  conducted,  and  5,181  men  and 
5,898  women,  a  total  of  11,079  paid  workers,  were 
employed.  The  total  average  daily  attendance  re¬ 
ported  at  summer  centers  by  407  cities  was  1,154,983. 
In  addition  to  the  502  cities  noted  above,  169  cities 
reported  school  playgrounds  or  centers  under  volun¬ 
tary  supervision.  Thirty-eight  cities  also  report  streets 
closed  for  play,  while  ninety-eight  cities  report  that 
they  have  safeguarded  streets  for  coasting. 

A  study  of  juvenile  delinquency  among  boys  be¬ 
tween  seven  and  seventeen  years  of  age  in  the  city  of 

1  Headquarters  are  at  315  Fourth  Avenue. 


66 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


Chicago  has  revealed  many  interesting  facts.  There 
was  in  one  year  a  decrease  in  juvenile  delinquency  of 
24  per  cent  within  the  radius  of  one  mile  of  small  play¬ 
grounds  opened  by  the  Special  Park  Commission.  In 
a  certain  restricted  area  in  the  vicinity  of  the  stock- 
yards,  a  portion  of  Chicago  most  difficult  to  improve, 
juvenile  delinquency  showed  a  decrease  of  44  per  cent 
during  the  period  in  which  the  small  parks  had  been 
open.  In  a  still  more  restricted  area  within  a  quarter 
mile  radius  of  three  playgrounds  there  appeared  a  de¬ 
crease  in  juvenile  delinquency  of  fifty  per  cent  from 
the  year  1900  to  1907,  and  within  a  radius  of  one  half 
a  mile  the  decrease  was  thirty-nine  per  cent.  It  was 
clearly  demonstrated  by  this  study  that  to  provide  a 
probation  district  with  adequate  play  facilities  is  coin¬ 
cident  with  a  reduction  in  juvenile  delinquency  of  from 
twenty-eight  to  seventy  per  cent.  In  St.  Paul  the 
establishment  of  a  single  recreation  center  in  a  partic¬ 
ularly  difficult  congested  area  resulted  in  a  fifty  per 
cent  reduction  in  juvenile  delinquency  for  the  entire 
city.  Results  of  a  like  nature  have  been  secured  in 
many  other  places. 

The  playground  as  such  has  been  found  to  serve 
most  effectively  those  children  under  fifteen  years  of 
age,  but  its  usefulness  cannot  be  limited  to  any  age 
group.  Young  employed  men  and  women  often  make 
heavy  demands  upon  these  play  centers,  particularly 
when  daylight  saving  extends  the  period  of  evening 
recreation.  Twilight  baseball  leagues  are  popular 
with  this  older  group,  as  are  volley-ball,  tennis,  hand¬ 
ball,  medicine  ball,  and  similar  games. 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


67 


For  the  babies  there  should  be  baskets  or  hammocks, 
and  objects  for  them  to  handle;  sand  piles,  swings, 
carts,  and  playthings  of  various  sorts  for  the  children 
who  are  beginning  to  run  about.  For  children  from 
three  to  six  years  there  should  be  singing,  games, 
stories,  and  constructive  play.  From  six  to  eleven  or 
twelve  years  there  is  a  demand  for  competitive  games, 
simple  dramatics,  and  a  multitude  of  other  activities. 
For  those  above  twelve  years  of  age  the  more  strenu¬ 
ous  individual  sports  and  competitive  games  are  de¬ 
sirable,  including  hikes,  nature  study,  trips  of  explora¬ 
tion,  and  the  like. 

CLUBS  FOR  GIRLS  AND  BOYS 

Important  as  is  the  playground,  it,  alone,  can  never 
solve  the  play  and  recreation  problem  of  boys  and  girls. 
By  twelve  years  of  age  at  least,  the  group  instinct  of 
youth  begins  to  demand  smaller  and  more  compact 
group  organization  than  is  possible  on  the  ordinary 
playground.  That  useful  institution  must  then  be  sup¬ 
plemented  by  Boy  Scouts,  Girl  Scouts,  Campfire  Girls’ 
organizations,  and  a  multitude  of  similar  clubs  for 
boys  and  girls.  It  would  be  hard  to  over-emphasize 
the  good  which  the  Boy  Scout  organization  has  done 
by  taking  hundreds  of  thousands  of  boys  at  an  age 
when  they  specially  need  help  and  guidance  and  sup¬ 
plying  to  them  wholesome  and  educative  activities  of 
many  and  varied  forms.  Similar  clubs  for  girls  have 
also  made  their  enormous  contributions  to  individual 
and  national  welfare. 

The  sad  fact  is  that  while  we  have  reached  many 


68  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

with  these  helpful  group  organizations,  we  have,  for 
lack  of  paid  and  volunteer  leadership,  been  obliged  to 
neglect  many  more  than  we  have  been  able  to  care  for. 
A  study  recently  made  by  the  Rotary  Club  of  Chicago 
of  what  was  being  done  for  boys  in  that  city  revealed 
the  fact  that  the  figures  of  all  agencies,  taken  at  their 
face  value  and  making  no  allowances  for  duplications, 
made  a  total  of  about  one  sixth  of  the  boy  population 
of  Chicago  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  twenty  years, 
that  was  being  reached  by  any  agency  attempting  to 
supply  some  sort  of  supervision  for  the  leisure  time  of 
the  boy.  In  other  words,  there  were  270,000  boys  in 
the  city  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  twenty  years  who 
were  not  being  touched  by  boys’  clubs,  boys’  work  in 
settlements,  Boy  Scouts,  Y.  M.  C.  A.  boys’  depart¬ 
ments,  public  schools  and  community  center  groups, 
and  clubs  or  church  clubs  of  any  sort.  We  do  not 
need  a  more  vivid  illustration  of  how  far  we  have 
fallen  short  of  doing  our  task.  We  already  know  the 
method  of  its  doing,  but  we  have  not  been  able  to 
muster  our  resources  to  do  it.  That  the  job  is  worth 
doing,  another  illustration  from  Chicago  indicates. 
The  records  of  the  Juvenile  Court  in  Chicago  show 
that  the  organization  of  a  single  boys’  club  with  ade¬ 
quate  equipment  in  building  and  apparatus,  and  under 
trained  direction,  assisted  in  reducing  juvenile  delin¬ 
quency  in  an  entire  police  precinct  51  per  cent  in  a 
single  year,  and  in  the  particular  ward  in  which  the 
club  is  situated  the  reduction  in  juvenile  delinquency 
was  73  per  cent  in  the  same  period  of  time. 

Surely  the  churches,  the  schools,  and  the  associa- 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


69 


tions  which  are  interested  in  saving  our  boys  and 
girls  can  make  no  finer  investment  than  in  securing 
both  the  facilities  and  the  leadership  which  will  enable 
us  to  provide  for  the  leisure  time  of  our  boys  and 
girls  in  a  far  more  adequate  way  in  the  future  than 
we  have  in  the  past.  Already  many  churches  and 
other  agencies  have  taken  their  tasks  seriously  and, 
through  clubs,  Boy  Scouts,  Campfire  Girls,  gymnasium 
classes,  ball  teams,  and  many  other  organizations,  have 
succeeded  in  dominating  the  young  life  of  their  com¬ 
munities.  They  have  blazed  the  trail  which  many 
others  must  follow  before  the  task  will  be  done. 

The  number  of  such  clubs  to  be  found  in  churches 
supported  by  home  mission  money  is  very  large,  run¬ 
ning  into  the  thousands — how  many,  one  could  scarcely 
attempt  to  estimate  even  approximately.  A'  single 
Italian  mission  housed  in  a  building  so  inconspicuous 
as  scarcely  to  attract  attention  carries  on  sixteen  clubs 
for  girls  and  boys  as  a  regular  part  of  its  current  pro¬ 
gram  (1922-1923).  These  clubs  are  directed  by 
young  men  and  women,  practically  all  of  whom  have 
had  college  training  and  most  of  whom  have,  in  addi¬ 
tion,  had  special  training  for  their  respective  tasks. 
Another  Italian  mission  provides  a  program  of  indus¬ 
trial  training,  entertainment,  and  religious  instruction 
which  takes  nearly  twelve  hundred  American  children 
of  Italian  parentage  from  the  crowded  streets  for  cer¬ 
tain  periods  each  week. 

In  connection  with  the  Daily  Vacation  Bible  Schools 
which  now  total  into  the  thousands  each  summer,  home 
mission  agencies  are  making  large  provision  both  for 


70 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


indoor  and  outdoor  play,  and,  each  summer,  in  con¬ 
nection  with  camps  of  various  sorts,  many  thousands 
of  children  are  given  an  annual  outing  in  God’s  out- 
of-doors.  One  playground  provided  during  the  sum¬ 
mer  of  1922  in  connection  with  a  mission  in  the  an¬ 
thracite  region  of  Pennsylvania  was  used  regularly 
by  girls  and  boys  during  the  day  and  by  young  men 
and  women  during  the  evening,  the  evening  attendance, 
on  occasion,  running  well  over  one  hundred.  The 
moral  breakdown  of  many  a  youth  has  grown  out  of 
the  fact  that  no  one  cared  how  he  spent  his  leisure. 

THE  STORY  OF  A  HOME  MISSION  CHURCH 

What  can  be  done  by  way  of  providing  a  program 
for  the  leisure  time  of  girls  and  boys  when  funds  and 
workers  are  available  is  well  illustrated  by  the  experi¬ 
ence  of  a  home  mission  church  in  a  mid-western  city. 
The  church  is  located  in  the  heart  of  a  foreign  section 
of  the  city.  There  are  perhaps  fifty  thousand  people 
of  many  nationalities  in  the  community  served  by  it. 
The  Sunday-school  has  a  membership  of  over  a  thou¬ 
sand,  made  up  largely  of  boys  and  girls  from  foreign¬ 
speaking  homes.  The  work,  however,  does  not  stop 
with  the  Sunday-school.  On  Monday  evening  there 
are  pictures,  and  750  children  are  on  hand  to  see  them. 
Bible  stories,  prayers,  and  gospel  songs  form  a  part 
of  the  program  for  this  occasion.  A  physical  director 
is  employed,  and  many  gymnasium  classes  scattered 
throughout  the  week  give  fun  and  training  to  a  large 
number  of  girls  and  boys.  The  girls  are  taught  to 
bake,  to  cook,  and  to  sew.  The  younger  girls  come 


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COMMUNITY  RECREATION 

The  trail  of  the  youthful  criminal  seldoms  leads  back  to  the 
playground  or  the  swimming  pool.  Girl  and  Boy  Scout  activities 
are  doing  an  invaluable  work  in  training  future  citizens.  Fac¬ 
tories  that  provide  recreation  for  their  employees  are  making 
investments  that  yield  large  physical  and  moral  returns  in  the 
lives  of  young  people. 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


71 


for  these  cooking  clubs  immediately  after  school,  and 
the  older  girls  come  in  the  evening.  Instruction  con¬ 
cerning  food  values  is  given,  and  the  preparation  of 
meals,  the  care  of  the  dining-room  and  kitchen,  and 
similar  activities  are  demonstrated  by  the  girls  in  the 
clubs.  For  the  boys  a  regular  industrial  school  is 
maintained.  It  has  sessions  on  Saturday  and  on  two 
evenings  each  week.  The  sessions  are  preceded  by  a 
devotional  service  of  song,  prayer,  and  Bible  stories. 
There  are  classes  in  printing,  cooking,  basketry,  book¬ 
binding,  pyrography,  brass  piercing,  and  art  crafts. 
During  the  summer  a  Daily  Vacation  Bible  School 
is  held.  The  enrolment  during  a  recent  summer  was 
over  four  hundred,  representing  eleven  different  na¬ 
tionalities.  The  work  consists  of  religious  instruction, 
industrial  training  of  various  sorts,  and  recreation. 
For  the  small  children  a  playroom  is  maintained.  A 
free  medical  dispensary  is  kept  open  six  days  each 
week.  A  summer  camp  is  also  supported  at  a  distance 
from  the  city,  and  this  is  kept  filled  throughout  the 
summer  with  boys  and  girls  from  the  parish.  A 
cafeteria  and  many  other  features  not  mentioned  here 
add  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  work.  This  particular 
case  is  cited,  not  because  it  is  unique,  or  because  it  is 
fully  meeting  the  needs  of  its  community,  but  rather 
to  suggest  the  variety  of  demands  which  are  made 
upon  a  church  in  a  congested  city  center,  when  it  stays 
by  its  task  and  attempts  to  minister  to  the  lives  of  the 
boys  and  girls  in  its  community  and  to  supply  some¬ 
thing  in  the  way  of  a  varied  program  for  the  leisure 
time  of  the  youth. 


72 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


A  program  of  the  sort  described  cannot  be  carried 
on  in  the  old-fashioned  one-room  church,  and  the 
work  of  such  an  institution  cannot  be  done  with  a  staff 
of  two  or  three  individuals.  If  the  church  is  to  min¬ 
ister  in  a  broad  way  to  the  lives  of  its  boys  and  girls, 
especially  in  a  congested  city  center,  it  must  provide 
both  adequate  buildings  and  adequate  staff. 

When,  however,  the  work  is  undertaken  seriously, 
very  definite  results  are  secured.  Thus  a  single  church 
supported  by  a  home  mission  board,  with  a  broad 
program  of  athletics,  clubs,  orchestra,  reading-rooms, 
classes,  community  gardens,  and  varied  social  features 
succeeded  in  five  years  in  reducing  juvenile  delinquency 
in  its  neighborhood  seventy-five  per  cent.  From  be¬ 
ing  one  of  the  worst  sections  of  the  city,  the  neighbor¬ 
hood  became  one  of  the  very  best.  The  finest  results, 
however,  are  not  limited  to  the  mere  prevention  of  de¬ 
linquency,  but  are  to  be  traced  in  the  lives  of  thousands 
of  individuals  whose  characters  have  been  built  strong 
and  clean  and  who  have  gone  out  to  lead  lives  of  ser¬ 
vice  in  a  world  in  which  otherwise  they  might  have 
been  mere  hangers-on. 

PLAY  IN  THE  RURAL  REGIONS 

Thus  far  we  have  said  many  things  about  the  need 
of  play  opportunities  for  the  half  of  our  boys  and 
girls  who  live  under  city  conditions.  What  of  the 
other  half  whom  we  may  assume  live  under  rural  con¬ 
ditions?  Do  the  problems  of  play  naturally  solve 
themselves  in  the  country,  in  the  quiet  of  God’s  out-of- 
doors?  Far  from  it! 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


73 


The  problem  of  play  is  far  more  than  a  mere  matter 
cf  space.  The  city  child  may  lack  room  in  which  to 
play,  but  he  rarely  lacks  playmates.  The  rural  child 
often  lacks  both  playmates  and  leadership.  From  cer¬ 
tain  grosser  evils  he  may  be  largely  shut  off  by  his 
very  isolation,  but  the  positive  values  of  play  are  often 
more  conspicuously  absent  in  the  country  than  in  the 
town.  The  games  of  the  country  child  have  always 
tended  to  be  individualistic  and  to  lack  the  organization 
which  might  make  of  them  a  real  school  for  democ¬ 
racy.  Very  often  the  responsibility  for  organized  play 
in  the  country  rests  upon  an  untrained  schoolteacher 
or  parent.  A  recent  investigation  revealed  the  fact  that 
in  many  country  schools  the  boys  stood  around  push¬ 
ing  each  other  and  scuffling,  while  the  girls  walked 
singly  or  in  pairs  or  engaged  in  some  other  unor¬ 
ganized  pastime.  There  seemed  to  be  lacking,  both 
on  the  part  of  pupils  and  teachers,  the  initiative  neces¬ 
sary  to  start  a  ball  game  or  other  organized  sport. 
The  play  instinct  was  there,  but  it  found  expression 
only  in  the  crudest  ways  because  it  was  unnurtured. 

The  individualistic  plays  of  the  countryside  during 
generations  past  developed  some  sides  of  the  child’s 
life,  but  they  do  not  provide  adequate  training  for  the 
complex  cooperative  life  of  the  present  day.  It  is 
often  said  that  the  reason  farmers  find  it  so  difficult 
and  at  times  almost  impossible  to  cooperate  as  adults, 
grows  out  of  the  fact  that  they  never  learned  the  give 
and  take  of  cooperative  team-play  while  they  were 
children. 

The  rural  child  greatly  needs  wise  and  stimulating 


74  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

leadership,  and  for  this  we  must  look  very  largely  to 
an  awakened  and  enlightened  parenthood,  to  public 
schoolteachers  in  our  rural  schools,  who  know  both 
the  value  and  the  technique  of  play,  and  to  the  rural 
pastor  who  recognizes  play  both  as  religion  and  a 
training  in  religion,  rather  than  as  an  evil  or  a  doubt¬ 
ful  good  to  be  tolerated  out  of  necessity. 

THE  PROGRAM  OF  A  RURAL  CHURCH 

Again  we  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  rural 
pastors  are  recognizing  the  value  of  play  and  giving  a 
prominent  place  to  it  in  planning  their  activities  for 
young  people.  From  the  program  of  one  rural  church 
during  a  recent  season,  we  pick  the  following  special 
events  which  have  particular  interest  for  youth : 
Harvest  Home  Festival;  Rally  Day  Service;  Play  by 
the  Boy  Scout  Troops;  Hallowe’en  Social;  Rainbow 
Social;  Thanksgiving  Service,  with  Scripture  reading 
by  two  boys;  Annual  Bazaar;  Readings  from  Job; 
Boy  Scouts’  Hike  and  Banquet;  Christmas  Exercises; 
Last  Chance  Party;  Hard  Times  Party;  Father  and 
Son  Banquet;  Lincoln  Memorial  Day;  Valentine  So¬ 
cial;  Mother  and  Daughter  Banquet;  St.  Patrick  So¬ 
cial;  Special  Passion  Week  Services;  Egg  Roll;  All 
Fools’  Day  Frolic;  Boy  Scout  Sunday:  Morning 
Watch  (6  a.m.),  Afternoon  Service,  and  Supper  in 
the  Woods;  Missionary  Evening;  May  Day  Festival; 
Mothers’  Day  Pageant;  Children’s  Day  Program; 
Afternoon  Lawn  Party;  Automobile  Excursion  and 
Dinner;  Boy  Scouts’  Camp  Week. 

From  such  a  program  as  this  it  is  evident  that 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


75 


the  boys  and  girls  have  a  place  in  the  thinking  of  the 
pastor  in  that  community  and  an  important  part  in 
the  life  of  the  church.  It  is  also  apparent  that  the 
providing  of  wholesome  recreation  is  looked  upon  as 
one  of  the  religious  duties  of  the  church.  One  can 
hardly  imagine  a  young  person  being  indifferent  to  the 
church  in  such  a  community.  There  is  too  much  that 
is  worth  while  taking  place.  He  could  not  afford  to 
miss  it.  And  what  is  being  done  here  is  being  dupli¬ 
cated  in  multitudes  of  other  places  where  ministers 
have  been  trained  in  summer  schools  or  elsewhere  in 
the  art  of  play  and  have  been  impressed  with  its  im¬ 
portance. 

A  MINING  CAMP 

A  home  mission  pastor  in  a  mining  camp  in  a 
crack  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  found  that  a  hole  in 
the  side  of  the  mountain  which  had  formerly  served 
as  the  mouth  of  a  mine  was  being  used  by  a  band 
of  youthful  criminals  as  a  rendezvous  for  telling 
smutty  stories  and  planning  mischief  and  as  a  place 
for  secreting  plunder  stolen  from  stores  and  homes 
in  the  community.  Instead  of  ranting  against  the 
evil  in  the  community,  he  organized  a  Boy  Scout 
Troop.  Very  soon  every  member  of  the  gang  was 
a  Boy  Scout.  The  Scout  work  was  taken  up  and 
the  Scout  Law  taught.  Hikes  were  conducted  and 
outings  of  many  sorts  arranged.  A  Father  and 
Son  Banquet  was  given,  and  a  Mother  and  Son 
Banquet  followed.  Gymnasium  classes,  knot  tying, 
signal  practise,  and  other  activities  filled  the  leisure 


76 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


time  of  the  boys,  until  they  began  to  qualify  as 
First  Class  Scouts.  It  is  perhaps  needless  to  add  that 
the  cave  in  the  side  of  the  mountain  was  deserted, 
new  habits  formed,  and  twenty-four  boys  became 
avowed  followers  of  Jesus  Christ.  One  boy,  as  his 
“good  turn,,,  cared  for  the  chores  of  an  old  woman 
every  day  for  a  year  and  a  half,  and  he  would  not  so 
much  as  allow  her  to  get  a  bucket  of  coal  for  herself. 

CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  WOMEN’S  AGENCIES 

Nor  have  the  women’s  home  mission  boards  been 
slow  in  recognizing  the  moral  and  religious  values  of 
play  in  the  life  of  the  child.  They  have  taken  definite 
steps  to  minister  to  the  need.  The  writer  has  seen 
many  happy  children  using  swings,  slides,  giant  strides 
and  similar  apparatus  in  adobe  villages  twenty,  thirty, 
and  forty  miles  from  the  railroad  in  our  great  West, 
and  this  apparatus,  which  came  like  a  benediction  from 
heaven,  to  the  delight  of  both  parents  and  children,  was 
provided  by  women’s  home  mission  agencies.  The 
moral  life  of  many  of  our  secluded  communities — 
among  the  Indians,  in  Negro  communities,  in  Spanish 
American  villages,  in  the  coke  regions  of  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  in  polyglot  centers  of  many  sorts  and  elsewhere 
— is  sweeter  and  purer  for  what  the  Christian  women 
of  America  have  done  to  teach  girls  and  boys  to  play 
and  to  provide  the  means  for  such  play. 

THE  PLACE  OF  MOTION  PICTURES 

Thus  far  in  our  discussion  of  play  we  have  said 
nothing  of  motion  pictures.  As  an  educational 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


77 


medium  the  motion  picture  has  already  come  to  occupy 
an  extremely  important  place,  and  many  of  its  possi¬ 
bilities  are  still  unexplored  or  undeveloped.  As  an 
amusement  it  is  one  of  the  cheapest  and  most  readily 
available  that  we  have,  but  as  play  or  a  substitute 
for  play,  it  has  large  and  inherent  limitations.  It 
is  a  passive  amusement  rather  than  an  active  recrea¬ 
tion.  It  provides  exercise  for  few  or  no  muscles. 
It  does  not  build  red  corpuscles  or  strong  bodies. 
It  does  not  develop  social  cooperation;  often  it  in¬ 
volves  sitting  in  darkness  in  improperly  ventilated 
rooms  for  extended  periods,  which  are  needed  for  real 
recreation,  and  it  possesses  other  characteristics  which 
automatically  limit  its  beneficial  effects  for  young  peo¬ 
ple  whose  bodies  demand  much  active  exercise  in  play. 

At  present  the  usefulness  of  the  motion  picture  is 
further  limited  by  a  certain  percentage  of  films  scat¬ 
tered  throughout  motion  picture  programs  in  a  more 
or  less  miscellaneous  manner,  that  do  violence  to  the 
moral  and  spiritual  natures  of  children.  Fortunately 
this  menace  of  improper  films  can  and  probably  will 
be  controlled  at  its  source.  Even  when  that  is  not 
done,  however,  the  fathers  and  mothers  in  the  local 
community  have,  in  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  a 
remedy  which  will  quickly  cure  the  evil  when  once 
they  become  enough  concerned  about  it  seriously  to 
desire  to  have  it  cured. 

Many  churches  and  other  community  agencies  are 
making  a  still  further  contribution  at  this  point  by 
showing  selected  films  under  their  own  auspices.  As 
yet  the  motion  picture  is  so  new  a  factor  in  our  na- 


78 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


tional  life  that  we  have  not  had  a  chance  to  study  its 
total  effect  upon  a  rising  generation.  That  it  is  bound 
to  have  a  large  and  important  bearing  upon  the  sort 
of  men  and  women  who  are  to  dominate  the  future  is 
evident.  Although  so  new  an  attraction,  the  testi¬ 
mony  before  a  Senate  committee  revealed  the  fact 
recently  that  the  American  people  are  spending  three 
quarters  of  a  billion  dollars  a  year  for  admission  to 
motion  picture  theaters.  A  considerable  part  of  this 
is  spent  by  boys  and  girls.  A  study  recently  made  in 
six  high  schools  in  Chicago  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
pupils  in  those  six  schools  were  spending  $920  each 
week  upon  the  movies,  or  $46,000  per  year.  It  was 
found  that  of  the  3,000  children  included  in  the  six 
schools,  eighty-seven  per  cent  attended  the  movies 
from  one  to  seven  times  each  week.  One  boy,  in  fact, 
reported  that  he  went  regularly  nine  times  a  week, 
every  night  and  Saturday  and  Sunday  afternoon.  In 
a  recently-made  study  by  Raymond  G.  Fuller  in  Ken¬ 
tucky  it  was  found  that  children  formed  a  large  part 
of  the  average  movie  audience.  In  some  cases  it  was 
discovered  that  twenty-five  per  cent  of  all  tickets  sold 
were  for  boys  and  girls  under  fourteen  years  of  age. 
The  superintendent  of  schools  in  one  city  reported 
that  90  per  cent  of  the  2,000  pupils  above  the  fourth 
grade  attended  the  movies  at  least  once  a  week,  that 
50  per  cent  attended  at  least  twice  a  week,  and  that 
some  went  as  often  as  five  times  a  week.  In  some 
cases  children  formed  75  per  cent  of  the  movie  audi¬ 
ences. 

One  proprietor  of  a  motion  picture  house  said  that, 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


7  9 


while  most  of  his  patrons  were  adults,  on  Saturday 
nights  when  he  gave  a  program  of  the  worst  stuff  he 
could  get  for  the  “rough-necks,”  the  audience  was 
made  up  of  from  one  third  to  one  half  children.  These 
occasions  are  well  described  as  “emotional  orgies.”  It 
was  the  unanimous  testimony  of  juvenile  court  judges 
in  connection  with  this  study  that  the  majority  of  de¬ 
linquent  boys  with  whom  they  had  to  deal  were 
“movie  fiends.”  In  one  case  seven  out  of  eight  boys 
who  were  brought  into  court  on  a  given  day  had  stolen 
money  in  order  to  be  able  to  attend  the  movies.  It  is 
small  wonder  that  the  term  “movie  fiend”  has  come 
into  use,  for  as  an  over-stimulating,  emotional  orgy 
and  as  a  substitute  for  play,  the  movie  can  easily  be¬ 
come  a  menace  to  community  welfare. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  movie  has  many  things  to  its 
credit.  It  has  occupied  the  time  of  thousands  of  girls 
and  boys  in  communities  which  have  had  no  adequate 
play  program.  It  has  led  some  of  them  into  mischief, 
but  it  has  doubtless  kept  many  more  out  of  mischief. 
The  movie  must  be  made  safe  for  girls  and  boys. 
That  is  a  task  of  great  importance,  but  when  it  is  com¬ 
pleted,  we  have  dealt  with  only  one  factor  and  that 
largely  a  negative  one  so  far  as  a  thoroughgoing  and 
constructive  play  program  for  the  community  is  con¬ 
cerned. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  WORK 

Very  closely  associated  with  this  entire  question  of 
play  is  work.  In  fact  the  connection  is  so  close  that 
it  is  hard  to  tell  where  play  leaves  off  and  work  be- 


80  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

gins.  The  four-year-old  child  who  toils  to  build  his 
house  of  blocks  is  at  play,  but  when  evening  comes, 
and  he  must  pile  those  same  blocks  away  in  order  that 
the  rest  of  the  family  may  move  about  the  room  in 
safety,  he  suddenly  discovers  that  the  zest  of  activity 
is  gone,  and  he  is  engaged  in  work.  The  difference 
between  play  and  work  often  lies  in  the  attitude  of 
mind  rather  than  in  the  type  of  activity.  To  the  man 
who  plays  ball  for  wages,  the  game  becomes  work, 
while  to  the  child  who  helps  his  mother  shell  peas  be¬ 
cause  he  likes  to  hear  the  pods  crack  open,  work  be¬ 
comes  play. 

It  was  particularly  true  in  the  homes  of  the  genera¬ 
tion  just  passed  that  there  was  no  sharply  drawn  line 
between  work  and  those  endlessly  varied  activities 
which,  because  they  challenged  the  enthusiasm  and 
spontaneous  interest  of  boys  and  girls  partook  largely 
of  the  nature  of  play.  In  the  year  1800  four  per  cent 
of  America’s  population  lived  in  cities;  96  per  cent  in 
the  country.  The  problem  of  training  girls  and  boys 
centered  about  agriculture.  Children  were  much  with 
their  parents.  Home  life  and  home  training  were  ex¬ 
alted.  About  the  home  there  gathered  a  group  of 
industries  which  provided  an  endless  round  of  inter¬ 
esting  activities  for  the  children  to  watch  and  for  them 
to  be  trained  in.  The  felling  of  great  trees  in  the 
forest,  the  cutting  of  wood  for  the  fireplace,  the  plow¬ 
ing  and  planting,  the  harvesting  and  storing  away  of 
produce  for  the  winter  months,  the  making  of  maple 
sugar,  the  shearing  of  the  sheep,  the  carding  of  the 
wool,  the  spinning  and  weaving,  the  making  of  gar- 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


81 


merits,  the  knitting  of  stockings  and  mittens,  quilting, 
making  soap,  butchering,  the  smoking  of  hams,  the 
threshing  or  winnowing  of  grains,  the  gathering  of 
wild  fruits,  the  catching  of  fish,  the  trapping  of  fur¬ 
bearing  animals  and  pests,  the  hunting  of  black  bear 
and  wild  deer,  the  husking  of  corn,  the  raising  of  new 
buildings,  the  molding  of  tallow  candles,  the  making 
of  butter  and  cheese,  preserving  of  fruit,  the  milking 
of  cows,  the  feeding  of  pigs,  the  gathering  of  eggs, 
the  building  of  fences, — these  were  but  a  few  of  the 
multitude  of  activities  which  for  generations  centered 
about  the  American  home,  the  home  where  most  of 
the  boys  and  girls  of  America  lived. 

Such  a  home  was  a  university  in  itself.  From  the 
time  the  sap  began  to  stir  in  the  maple  trees  and  the 
cowslips  began  to  appear  in  the  swamps  until  the  snow 
was  again  piled  high  on  the  door-sill,  there  was  a 
never  ending  round  of  fascinating  activity,  most  of 
which  the  children  shared  with  the  parents.  Even 
today  there  are  homes  where  a  large  part  of  these 
various  industries  and  activities  are  carried  on,  but 
they  are  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule.  Even  as 
late  as  1850  there  were  in  the  United  States  seven 
children  living  in  a  rural  environment  to  every  one 
child  living  under  city  conditions.  Now  the  census 
reveals  the  bald  fact  that  more  than  half  of  our  chil¬ 
dren  are  born  and  brought  up  under  city  conditions. 

As  our  social,  industrial,  and  economic  life  has  be¬ 
come  more  thoroughly  organized,  many  important 
changes  have  taken  place  in  our  manner  of  living. 
Industries  which  once  thrived  in  the  home  have  long 


82  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

since  disappeared  from  it;  comforts  and  conveniences 
have  increased,  and  not  only  the  need,  but  even  the 
opportunity  for  work  about  the  home  has  tended  to 
disappear.  The  son  of  the  father  who  spent  many 
hours  carrying  water  from  an  outside  well  to  fill  the 
tank,  the  water-pail,  the  wash-tub  and  boiler,  finds 
hot  and  cold  water  responding  to  the  turn  of  a  spigot. 
That  same  son  is  kept  warm  by  coal  shoveled  by  a 
janitor,  and  thus  he  escapes  the  tasks  of  splitting  the 
kindling  wood,  filling  the  woodbox,  starting  the  fires 
on  a  cold  morning,  and  taking  out  the  ashes.  He  is 
not  troubled  to  feed  the  pig,  milk  the  cow,  or  grow 
vegetables  for  family  use,  for  the  wealth  of  the  world 
can  be  ordered  by  telephone  from  the  corner  market. 

CHANGES  IN  INDUSTRY  AND  CHILD  LABOR 

As  industry  has  gone  from  it,  the  home,  too,  has 
undergone  many  changes.  Instead  of  a  thousand 
varying  tasks  for  the  same  individual,  industry  has 
tended  to  become  a  series  of  specialized  tasks  which 
make  it  necessary  for  one  person  to  go  through  the 
same  motions  moment  after  moment,  hour  after  hour, 
day  after  day,  week  after  week,  month  after  month, 
and  year  after  year.  In  contrast  to  the  work  of  the 
past,  the  work  of  the  present  lacks  both  play  value  and 
educative  value.  There  soon  ceases  to  be  any  inspira¬ 
tion  in  the  task  of  sticking  uncounted  thousands  of 
identical  labels  on  other  uncounted  thousands  of  ex¬ 
actly  identical  articles,  and  yet  that  sort  of  a  job  is 
typical  of  the  processes  of  industry  today,  and  it  mat¬ 
ters  little  whether  the  particular  task  be  sticking  labels, 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


83 


feeding  blocks  of  wood  into  a  machine,  throwing 
sprags  into  car  wheels,  or  placing  a  certain  sized  nut 
on  a  certain  sized  bolt.  The  monotony  of  the  task, 
the  long  hours,  and  the  often  unwholesome  conditions 
of  labor  make  participation  in  much  of  modern  in¬ 
dustry  a  physical,  mental,  and  moral  menace  to  grow¬ 
ing  youth. 

We  have  had  the  courage  to  fight  “child  labor” 
which  was  grinding  out  the  spirits  and  lives  of  boys 
and  girls  at  tasks  entirely  unsuited  to  them  and  which 
was  physically,  intellectually,  and  morally  dwarfing 
those  who  survived.  In  this  struggle  we  have  made 
great  gains  both  in  legislation  and  in  the  creation  of 
a  public  conscience  in  the  matter.  The  poorly-devel¬ 
oped,  under-nourished,  over-worked  factory  child  is 
not  so  common  as  in  the  days  which  have  passed. 
State  laws  and  federal  legislation  have  done  much  to 
check  the  evils  of  child  labor.  The  fact  that  the  Fed¬ 
eral  Child  Labor  Law  has  been  found  unconstitutional 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  marks  but 
a  brief  set-back  in  a  struggle  which  is  bound  to  be 
ultimately  successful.  The  most  generally  accepted 
proposal  at  present  is  that  of  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution  covering  this  matter. 

Child  Labor  has  been  defined  by  Mr.  Edward  N. 
Clopper  as  “the  employment  of  a  child  under  eighteen 
years  of  age  at  any  task,  with  or  without  pay,  under 
direction  or  independently  of  others,  which  deprives 
him  of  his  proper  measure  of  schooling,  training, 
recreation,  and  healthy  development.”  That  sort  of 
child  labor  must  go,  whether  it  be  in  the  country  or  in 


84  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

the  city.  In  spite  of  progress  we  still  have  multi¬ 
tudes  of  boys  and  girls  who  are  unjustly  deprived  of 
a  fair  chance  at  life  because  they  are  forced  to  labor 
under  conditions  which  tend  to  break  down  bodies, 
crush  spirits,  and  dwarf  intellects.  As  a  national  pol¬ 
icy  this  is  needless,  wasteful,  and  foolish.  To  follow¬ 
ers  of  Jesus  Christ  it  should  be  intolerable. 

When  the  Federal  Child  Labor  Tax  Law  was  passed 
in  1919  it  was  made  to  apply  only  to  children  working 
in  mines,  quarries,  factories,  canneries,  mills,  and  man¬ 
ufacturing  establishments.  The  child  in  agriculture 
was  not  affected.  So  far  as  legislation  is  concerned 
the  farm  child  has  been  protected  chiefly  by  compul¬ 
sory  school  attendance  laws,  the  enforcement  of  which 
has  been  particularly  lax  in  rural  regions.  The 
studies  of  the  National  Child  Labor  Committee  show 
that  rural  child  labor  causes  as  much  absence  from 
school  as  illness,  bad  weather,  bad  roads,  distance  from 
home  to  school,  and  indifference  combined.  A  detailed 
study  made  in  the  State  of  Oklahoma  revealed  the 
fact  that  of  the  children  enroled  in  the  rural  schools 
of  the  state  only  57.2  per  cent  on  the  average  attended 
daily.  The  demands  of  cotton-picking,  cattle-herding, 
asparagus-cultivating,  and  the  multitudinous  other 
tasks  which  present  themselves  in  an  agricultural  com¬ 
munity  explained  the  large  proportion  of  absences. 
Here  children  from  five  years  old  and  upward  were 
found  working  all  day  in  the  cotton  field.  One  public 
school  visited  a  month  after  the  opening  of  the  term 
had  eighteen  pupils  in  attendance  and  fifteen  absentees, 
who  were  out  still  picking  cotton.  It  is  a  common 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


85 


saying  in  this  state  as  in  many  others  that  “cotton  and 
ignorance  go  together,”  and  it  goes,  perhaps  without 
saying,  that  a  child  who  is  engaged  long  hours  in  the 
cotton  field  has  little  energy  left  for  the  development 
of  a  normal  play  life. 

In  Kentucky  boys  of  nine,  ten,  twelve,  thirteen,  and 
fifteen  years  of  age  were  found  hoeing,  topping,  and 
working  tobacco  while  the  schools  which  they  were 
supposed  to  attend  went  on  with  their  work  without 
them.  In  Colorado  it  was  estimated  after  careful 
investigation  that  5,000  children  between  the  ages  of 
six  and  fifteen  were  engaged  in  beet  raising. 

Altogether  it  is  estimated  that  there  are  two  million 
boys  and  girls  in  the  United  States  who  are  child 
laborers  to  their  own  detriment,  either  physically  or 
educationally.  Three  quarters  of  these  children  are 
in  our  rural  regions.  It  is  not  surprising  that  exami¬ 
nation  shows  that  country  boys  and  girls  tend  to  be 
round  shouldered  and  flat-chested,  and  that  they  are 
particularly  deficient  in  lung  capacity  and  heart  de¬ 
velopment,  although  their  digestion  is  usually  good. 
Hard  and  monotonous  work  cannot  take  the  place  of 
play  and  schools  in  the  life  of  children  if  strong  bodies 
and  alert  minds  are  to  be  developed. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  all  undesirable  child 
labor  has  been  eliminated  in  our  cities.  There  is  still 
much  tenement  homework;  there  are  children  engaged 
in  all  sorts  of  street  trades;  and  there  are  many  other 
sorts  of  employment  which  are  permitted  to  children 
to  the  danger  of  their  moral  and  physical  well-being. 
Thus  in  twenty-one  states  there  are  laws  covering  the 


86  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

employment  of  children  in  street  trades,  yet  so  low  is 
the  age  limit  fixed  in  some  cases  that  a  ten-year-old 
boy  is  not  prohibited  from  such  employment. 

EDUCATION  THE  BUSINESS  OF  CHILDHOOD 

We  must  assume  that  the  getting  of  an  education 
with  all  that  this  involves  of  study,  recreation,  and 
suitable  work  shall  be  the  chief  and  only  occupation 
of  all  children  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  years,  and 
that  those  individuals  who  have  not  finished  high 
school  and  are  at  work  between  the  ages  of  sixteen 
and  twenty-one  shall  be  required  to  go  on  with  their 
school  training  in  continuation  schools  adapted  to 
their  needs.  If  ever  there  was  the  need  for  the  em¬ 
ployment  of  children  in  industry,  that  need  has  long 
since  passed.  In  general  our  productive  power  has 
become  so  great  that  one  of  our  national  problems  is 
the  finding  of  an  outlet  for  our  surplus  products. 
Even  the  Wall  Street  Journal  recently  gave  space  to 
an  article  entitled,  “What  shall  we  do  with  our  one- 
third  surplus  manufacturing  capacity?”  We  can  no 
longer  plead  that  industry  needs  the  labor  of  little 
children,  and  we  must  in  some  way  construct  a  social 
order  in  which  the  economic  pressure  upon  individual 
homes  shall  not  be  so  great  as  to  demand  the  labor 
of  girls  and  boys  at  monotonous,  soul-destroying 
tasks. 

In  the  country  the  most  immediately  effective 
weapon  for  dealing  with  child  labor  is  the  compulsory 
school-attendance  laws.  The  adequate  enforcement  of 
these  laws  would  do  away  with  some  of  the  most 


Great  strides  have  been  made  in  laws  protecting  child  labor,  but  there  is  still  much  to  be 
done.  Not  only  are  the  sanitary  and  moral  conditions  in  migrant  camps  unwholesome,  but 
the.  child  laborers  are  deprived  of  home,  school,  and  church  privileges,  those  influences 
which  tend  to  develop  true  manhood  and  womanhood. 


THE  TENTH  AMERICAN  CHILD 

One  tenth  of  America’s  children  are  Negroes.  At  present  the 
great  city  centers  of  Negro  life  are  in  the  North.  With  each 
passing  year  the  demands  upon  the  church  to  supplement  the 
inadequacies  of  the  home  become  heavier.  Classes  for  Negro 
girls  and  boys  will  soon  make  it  impossible  for  shacks  like  those 
above  to  find  tenants. 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


87 


flagrant  abuses  of  child  labor  in  our  rural  regions. 
Even  more  fundamental,  however,  is  the  creation  of 
such  ideals  among  parents  that  they  will  recognize 
the  supreme  importance  of  childhood  and  the  value  of 
abundant  play  and  adequate  education  in  the  life  of 
the  child. 

NEED  FOR  A  CONSTRUCTIVE  PROGRAM  OF  WORK 

When,  however,  we  have  succeeded  in  eliminating 
all  of  the  evils  of  “child  labor,”  we  have  dealt  only 
with  the  negative  side  of  a  matter  which  must  have 
positive  and  constructive  treatment.  Just  as  boys  and 
girls  need  a  positive  play  program,  so  they  need  a  posi¬ 
tive  work  program — a  program  which  avoids  the  dan¬ 
gers  of  monotony,  long  hours,  undue  strain,  and  inter¬ 
ference  with  education  and  a  normal  play  life.  In  the 
cities  the  problem  is,  indeed,  a  perplexing  one.  Larger 
opportunities  for  work  under  wholesome  conditions 
must  in  some  way  be  provided,  but  in  the  meantime 
a  better  play  program  may  be  used  to  develop  very 
much  the  same  moral  virtues  and  the  same  mechanical 
skill  as  does  a  program  of  work.  The  difference  be¬ 
tween  a  well-directed  program  of  work  and  play  for 
girls  and  boys  is  so  slight  that,  under  proper  condi¬ 
tions,  the  one  may  be  substituted  for  the  other  with¬ 
out  any  real  danger  that  a  child  will  grow  up  either 
unskilled  in  achievement  or  indolent  in  his  habits. 

In  the  rural  regions  it  is  easier  to  provide  a  pro¬ 
gram  of  work  for  children  and  it  is  far  easier  to  cor¬ 
relate  that  program  with  the  normal  home  and  school 
life  of  the  individual  child.  This  fact  has  already 


88  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

been  discovered,  and  corn  clubs,  garden  clubs,  canning 
clubs,  poultry  clubs,  and  many  other  similar  organi¬ 
zations  are  already  making  enormous  contributions  to 
the  life  of  our  rural  children.  The  county  agent,  the 
farm  demonstrator,  the  trained  teacher,  the  wise 
parent,  and  the  rural  pastor  work  hand  in  hand  to 
make  such  enterprises  effective.  Where  they  have 
been  undertaken,  these  projects  have  borne  large 
fruitage  both  in  the  lives  of  individuals  and  in  the  life 
of  the  community.  They  provide  wholesome  leisure 
time  activities,  they  add  immeasurably  to  the  interest 
of  the  child  in  his  home  and  community,  and  they 
furnish  training  in  work  without  the  evils  which  are 
characteristic  of  so  many  other  activities. 

Our  big  problem,  then,  is  to  discover  and  make 
available  for  girls  and  boys  such  projects  of  work  and 
play  as  will  draw  out  their  enthusiastic  cooperation 
and  furnish  for  them  a  training  in  the  practise  of 
those  social  virtues  which  are  so  much  needed  in  a 
democracy.  At  the  same  time,  they  will  develop  skill 
and  avoid  those  gross  evils  which  leave  the  child 
crippled  mentally,  physically,  or  morally  as  he  assumes 
the  full  duties  of  adult  membership  in  the  community. 
Leisure  time  will  no  longer  care  for  itself.  Provision 
for  its  proper  use  must  be  made,  and  we  must  under¬ 
take  seriously  the  task  of  making  that  provision. 

CRIME  A  RESULT  OF  MISDIRECTED  LEISURE 

Our  country  is  flooded  with  youthful  criminals. 
They  did  not  learn  to  be  criminals  in  our  public 
schools  or  in  our  Sunday-schools,  but  they  did  learn 


PLAY  AND  WORK 


89 


during  their  leisure  hours.  Their  home  influences 
failed  to  be  sufficient  to  restrain  their  impulses  to  evil, 
and  the  community  failed  to  come  to  the  rescue.  As 
a  part  of  his  regular  work  in  one  day,  a  judge  of  a 
county  court  recently  sentenced  twenty  criminals  to 
prison,  their  sentences  totaling  two  hundred  and  six 
years.  The  oldest  man  sentenced  that  day  was  twenty- 
three  years  of  age;  most  of  the  unhappy  victims  were 
mere  boys  of  eighteen  or  nineteen.  Any  one  of  these 
boys  might  well  have  had  the  genius  to  make  large 
contributions  to  our  common  progress,  but  society  did 
not  give  them  a  fair  chance.  They  may  live  many 
years,  but  the  chances  are  that  each  is  now  irrevocably 
committed  to  a  life  of  crime.  We  hardly  need  a  more 
striking  illustration  than  this  one,  picked  at  random, 
of  the  importance  of  directing  the  leisure  time  of  our 
boys  and  girls. 

A  PROGRAM  OF  LEISURE-TIME  ACTIVITIES  ESSENTIAL 

The  glory  of  man  lies  in  his  long-extended  period 
of  youth.  The  business  of  youth  is  preparation  for 
maturity.  In  the  divine  plan  the  home  makes  its  large 
contribution  to  that  preparation,  and  so  do  the  schools, 
but  the  play  life  and  the  work  life  of  the  child,  whether 
it  be  directed  from  within  or  without  the  home,  are 
also  most  important  factors  in  it.  To  neglect  to  pro¬ 
vide  opportunities  for  wholesome  play  and  work  is  to 
be  derelict  with  respect  to  a  portion  of  the  child’s  train¬ 
ing  which  may  nullify  the  work  of  both  the  home  and 
the  school.  In  spite  of  modern  conditions  of  life,  we 
can  still,  to  a  measurable  extent,  control  the  leisure 


90 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


time  of  our  boys  and  girls  when  once  we  feel  deeply 
enough  concerning  its  importance  to  do  so.  That  the 
Church  has  made  large  advances  in  this  field,  the  hun¬ 
dreds  of  thousands  of  girls  and  boys  who  each  day 
of  the  week  spend  pleasant  and  profitable  hours  out¬ 
side  of  school,  in  the  clubs,  industrial  classes,  and 
gymnasium  groups  of  home  mission  churches  and 
community  houses,  stand  as  a  silent  witness.  Home 
mission  agencies  are  committed  to  a  program  of 
caring  for  the  leisure  time  of  the  youth  in  our  neediest 
communities.  Their  efforts  are  limited  only  by  the 
resources  made  available  for  them. 

Within  recent  years,  particularly  the  last  three  or 
four,  marked  progress  has  been  made  in  training  min¬ 
isters  already  in  service  in  matters  pertaining  to  child 
welfare  and  child  training.  Thousands  of  ministers 
have  been  gathered  in  summer  schools  for  such  train¬ 
ing,  and  recently  an  interdenominational  committee  of 
the  Home  Missions  Council  officially  adopted  a  four- 
year  summer  training  program  with  emphasis  upon 
religious  education,  club  work  with  boys  and  girls, 
child  hygiene,  community  sanitation,  games  and  recrea¬ 
tion,  and  related  topics.  Already  hundreds  of  ministers 
have  gone  back  from  such  training  with  an  entirely 
new  conception  of  the  place  of  the  child  in  the  program 
of  the  Church  and  with  definite  plans  for  putting  the 
newly  acquired  ideas  into  practice.  Indeed,  many  rural 
parishes  have  been  entirely  remade  as  a  result  of  this 
work. 


CHAPTER  IV 
Education  in  a  Democracy 

In  1642,  twenty-two  years  after  the  landing  of  the 
Mayflower,  Massachusetts  enacted  the  first  law  relat¬ 
ing  to  public  education.  This  law  declared  that  it  was, 
not  only  the  right,  but  the  duty  of  the  State  to  see 
that  every  child  received  an  education.  The  selectmen 
were  given  power  to  investigate  concerning  the  train¬ 
ing  of  children,  and  a  parent  was  made  liable  to  a  fine 
for  neglecting  to  educate  his  child.  Curiously  enough, 
however,  this  law  which  made  education  compulsory 
made  no  provision  for  schools  or  teachers.  The  reason 
lay  in  the  fact  that  education  at  the  time  was  essen¬ 
tially  a  household  industry.  Each  parent  was  expected 
to  do  his  own  teaching  under  his  own  roof,  or  to  make 
provision  for  it.  The  law  has  been  likened  to  modern 
sanitary  laws  which  compel  a  householder  to  keep  his 
premises  in  sanitary  condition  for  the  sake  of  the  com¬ 
munity  welfare,  and  then  leave  to  him  the  job  of  dis¬ 
covering  a  method  of  achieving  the  result  demanded. 
Within  five  years  after  the  passage  of  this  first  law, 
however,  legislation  looking  toward  the  actual  estab¬ 
lishment  of  schools  was  enacted. 

RELIGIOUS  MOTIVES  PARAMOUNT 

It  is  of  interest  to  note  that  the  reason  given  in  this 
legislation  of  1647  for  the  establishment  of  schools 
was  that  these,  schools  should  be  maintained  in  order 

to  thwart  “the  chief  project  of  the  old  deluaer,  Satan, 

91 


92  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

to  keep  men  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures/’ 
Without  such  provision  for  public  schools  it  was  feared 
that  “the  true  sense  and  meaning”  of  the  Scriptures 
might  ultimately  become  clouded.  It  may  also  be  per¬ 
tinent  in  this  connection  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that,  as  the  office  of  the  schoolmaster  developed,  his 
duties  came,  in  a  general  way,  to  be  these:  to  act  as 
court  messenger,  to  serve  summonses,  to  conduct  cer¬ 
tain  ceremonial  services  of  the  church,  to  lead  the 
Sunday  choir,  to  ring  the  bell  for  public  worship,  to 
dig  the  graves,  to  take  charge  of  the  school,  and  to 
perform  other  occasional  duties. 

In  the  vicinity  of  New  York  the  contract  further 
provided  that  the  schoolmaster  should  every  day  read 
to  his  class  four  prayers  from  the  prayer  book,  that  he 
should  teach  the  common  prayers  and  the  catechism 
on  Wednesday  and  Saturday,  so  as  to  have  all  the 
pupils  well  prepared  for  Sunday  lessons,  and  that  he 
should  regularly  catechize  the  children  upon  the  ser¬ 
mon  of  the  previous  Sunday. 

Another  indication  of  the  religious  motive  which 
lay  back  of  this  zeal  for  education  is  to  be  found  in 
the  contents  of  the  books  used.  Many  illustrations 
might  be  cited,  but  the  case  of  the  New  England 
primer  which  was  published  through  many  editions 
for  two  centuries,  and  even  up  until  1886,  will  suffice. 
The  dissertation  here  on  the  alphabet  began  with  the 
theological  observation  that: 

“In  Adam’s  fall 
We  sinned  all.” 

It  passed  quickly  to  such  bits  of  Biblical  lore  as: 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


93 


“Zaccheus  he 
Did  climb  a  tree 
Our  Lord  to  see.” 

And  it  included  such  teachings  on  the  subject  of 
morality  as: 

“A  dog  will  bite 
A  thief  at  night.” 

OTHER  MOTIVES  ENTER  IN 

With  the  development  of  colonial  life  and  particu¬ 
larly  with  the  successful  completion  of  the  struggle 
for  political  freedom,  the  religious  motive  for  educa¬ 
tion  was  supplemented  by  many  other  motives  of  vary¬ 
ing  sorts.  So  long  as  the  affairs  of  men  were  con¬ 
trolled  by  monarchs,  the  need  for  popular  education 
as  a  political  and  national  safeguard  was  less  insistent. 
Helpless  indeed  is  the  man  who  undertakes  seriously 
to  share  in  the  government  if  the  very  channels  of 
information  are  closed  to  him.  In  a  democracy,  the 
ability  to  read  becomes  of  paramount  importance.  No 
system  of  democratic  control  can  long  continue  if 
education  is  neglected.  To  a  government  of  the  peo¬ 
ple,  ignorance  is  always  and  of  necessity  intolerable. 
H.  G.  Wells  puts  the  matter  on  an  even  broader  basis 
when  he  says,  “It  has  always  been  a  race  between  edu¬ 
cation  and  catastrophe.” 

George  Washington  fully  appreciated  how  much  the 
success  of  our  own  government  was  dependent  upon 
education,  and  again  and  again  in  his  letters  and  public 
addresses  he  pressed  home  his  conviction  in  this 
matter.  On  January  8,  1790,  in  addressing  both 


94 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


houses  of  Congress  he  said,  “Knowledge  is  in  every 
country  the  surest  basis  of  public  happiness.  In  one 
in  which  the  measures  of  government  receive  their 
impressions  so  immediately  from  the  sense  of  the 
community  as  in  ours,  it  is  proportionately  essential.” 
In  his  farewell  address,  September  17,  1796,  he  said, 
“Promote,  then,  as  an  object  of  primary  importance, 
institutions  for  the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge. 
In  proportion  as  the  structure  of  government  gives 
force  to  public  opinion,  it  is  essential  that  public 
opinion  be  enlightened.” 

IDEA  OF  FREE  POPULAR  EDUCATION  GROWS 

Following  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  idea  of 
popular  education  at  public  expense  began  to  take 
shape  as  a  national  policy.  By  1850  the  New  England 
doctrine  of  tax-supported  free  schools  was  accepted  in 
all  the  Northern  states.  The  survey  of  the  educa¬ 
tional  situation  in  this  country  made  by  the  United 
States  Commissioner  of  Education  as  late  as  1870 
contains  some  rather  illuminating  statements.  Speak¬ 
ing  of  South  Carolina  and  of  the  failure  of  the  general 
assembly  to  pass  a  school  bill,  he  says,  “The  children 
of  the  State  are  daily  growing  up  in  ignorance/’  Of 
Texas  he  says,  “In  Texas  no  school  legislation  has,  so 
far,  succeeded,  and  no  public  officers  are  at  work  for 
the  organization  of  schools,  her  entire  population 
being  left  to  grow  up  in  ignorance  save  as  here  and 
there  a  private  enterprise  throws  a  little  light  upon  the 
prevailing  darkness.”  For  Arizona  he  reports  that  she 
has  “never  had  any  schools  worth  mentioning”;  for 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


95 


Colorado  that  “repeated  efforts  have  failed  to  uncover 
any  information  about  public  schools”;  for  New 
Mexico  that  she  “has  not  a  single  public  school  or 
schoolhouse” ;  and  for  Arkansas  that  “in  some  sec¬ 
tions  there  is  apathy  toward  and  in  other  sections 
direct  hostility  to  the  public  school  idea.”  In  the  half 
century  which  has  followed  that  report  much  progress 
has  been  made  in  supplying  some  of  the  deficiences 
revealed  by  it,  but  that  progress  has  been  far  from 
uniform,  and  today  the  fact  is  that  “half  the  United 
States  doesn’t  know  how  the  other  half  goes  to 
school.”  When  the  first  public  schools  were  estab¬ 
lished  in  New  England,  they  were  town  schools  serv¬ 
ing  the  entire  settlement  in  which  they  were  located. 
As  settlers  began  to  spread  out,  these  centrally  located 
schools  were  less  effective  in  reaching  the  entire  popu¬ 
lation  of  the  township,  and  so  “traveling  schools”  were 
held;  that  is,  a  school  would  be  held  in  one  part  of 
the  township  during  a  certain  portion  of  the  year 
and  in  other  parts  during  other  portions. 

Gradually  these  sections  served  by  the  “traveling 
schools”  became  the  school  “districts,”  the  “traveling 
school”  gave  way  to  the  “district  school,”  and  the  dis¬ 
trict  became  the  unit  for  school  administration.  This 
plan  was  essentially  one  of  decentralization,  localism, 
and  democratic  control  carried  about  as  far  as  it  could 
well  be  carried.  The  size  of  the  school  district  itself 
was  determined  by  the  ability  of  the  smallest  child  of 
school  age  in  the  district  to  attend  school,  or,  as  some¬ 
one  has  aptly  said,  it  was  measured  by  the  length  of 
the  legs  of  a  six-year-old  child.  As  the  years  passed 


96 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


the  limitations  of  the  district  plan  of  administration 
became  more  and  more  apparent,  and  the  state  of  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  which  had  given  the  district  idea  to  the  na¬ 
tion,  was  the  first  to  abandon  it  (in  1882). 

Today  there  is  a  very  decided  drift  toward  the 
establishment  of  larger  units — particularly  the  county 
unit — of  school  administration  and  toward  the  pro¬ 
viding  of  fewer  and  more  centrally  located  or  “con¬ 
solidated”  schools.  It  has  already  been  demonstrated 
that  this  plan  insures  better  attendance,  far  more  ade¬ 
quate  educational  facilities,  and  much  better  teaching. 
The  present  rapid  progress  toward  the  consolidation 
of  schools  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  on  the 
educational  horizon. 

OUR  SCHOOLS  NOT  ALTOGETHER  SUCCESSFUL 

That  our  schools  have  not  been  an  unqualified 
success  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  seven  other  countries 
have  a  higher  percentage  of  literacy  than  has  the 
United  States.  Americans  do  not  like  to  admit  facts 
like  this.  And  it  is  not  an  altogether  easy  thing  to 
convince  a  man  who  lives  in  a  community  where  rea¬ 
sonably  good  educational  advantages  exist  that  in  far 
too  large  a  number  of  other  communities  the  situation 
is  quite  the  reverse,  and  that  many  American  girls 
and  boys  are  growing  up  in  ignorance. 

A  composite  picture  of  the  rural  schools  of  America 
would  include  many  unlovely  features.  There  would 
be  thousands  of  rough,  one-room  buildings  which 
have  never  had  any  paint  or  have  long  since  lost  all 
traces  of  it.  There  would  be  buildings  with  desks  and 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


97 


without  desks.  In  some  cases  there  would  be  “patent” 
seats;  in  others,  the  children  would  be  found  sitting 
on  rough  benches.  There  would  be  thousands  of 
buildings  with  no  provision  for  ventilation,  where  the 
air  would  be  found  too  foul  for  description.  There 
would  be  teachers  teaching  with  overcoats  and  other 
wraps  on,  and  there  would  be  children  shaking  with  the 
cold  as  they  try  to  write  or  study  their  lessons.  There 
would  be  unpalatable  cold  lunches  and  thirsty  children 
and  children  drinking  out  of  unwashed  common  tin 
dippers  or  directly  from  the  water  pail  itself.  There 
would  be  toilet  arrangements  too  bad  for  description. 
Contagious  diseases  would  be  running  riot,  and  in¬ 
numerable  other  unsavory  details  would  be  added  to 
complete  the  picture. 

MANY  BRIGHT  SPOTS 

Of  course  it  would  have  its  bright  side  too  for  there 
would  be  real  school  buildings,  properly  lighted, 
heated,  and  ventilated.  There  would  be  trained  and 
experienced  teachers  with  high  ideals.  In  some  cases 
there  would  be  charts,  maps,  books,  globes,  simple 
scientific  apparatus,  and  other  helps ;  and  warm 
lunches  served  at  noon,  sanitary  drinking  arrange¬ 
ments,  clean  toilets,  supervised  playgrounds,  and  other 
features  designed  to  make  life,  even  in  a  rural  school, 
a  really  worth-while  experience.  There  would  be  an 
increasing  number  of  consolidated  schools  with  numer¬ 
ous  teachers  making  possible  a  type  of  training  which 
can  never  be  realized  in  the  small  one-room  school 
with  its  single  teacher  responsible  for  all  the  grades. 


98 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


VERY  UNEQUAL  OPPORTUNITIES 

The  fact  that  there  are  these  bright  spots  does  not, 
however,  at  all  improve  the  condition  of  the  many 
American  boys  and  girls  who  are  not  having  a  decent 
chance  in  the  schools  of  their  own  communities,  and 
it  should  not  blind  us  to  the  further  fact  that,  as  a 
whole,  our  public  school  system  is  very  sick.  In  gen¬ 
eral  the  boy  or  girl  who  lives  in  our  rural  regions 
today  has  about  half  as  good  a  chance  to  get  an  edu¬ 
cation  as  has  the  child  who  lives  in  town,  but  in  some 
rural  regions  the  schools  are  not  even  half  as  good 
as  they  are  in  others.  Thus  the  disparity  of  oppor¬ 
tunity  becomes  even  greater  until,  in  some  cases,  the 
opportunity  itself  reaches  the  vanishing  point.  This 
may  result  from  the  placing  of  too  much  work  upon 
a  good  teacher  as  well  as  from  the  employment  of 
entirely  inadequate  teachers  or  the  lack  of  community 
standards.  Thus  a  study  of  the  situation  revealed  that 
in  the  average  one-room  school  the  teacher  often  has 
from  thirty  to  forty  classes  in  six  hours,  with  the  re¬ 
sult  that  the  class  periods  are  but  ten  minutes  each  and 
these  are  often  reduced  to  from  three  to  five  or  eight 
minutes  each.  This  almost  impossible  situation  has 
done  much  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  con¬ 
solidated  school  where,  experience  has  demonstrated, 
attendance  is  more  regular,  behavior  is  better,  the 
social  influence  is  more  wholesome,  good  teachers  are 
far  easier  to  secure,  and  the  rate  of  progress  of  the 
pupils  is  twice  as  fast  as  in  the  one-room  school. 

The  unwholesome  situation  in  many  of  our  rural 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


99 


schools  is  vividly  pictured  by  J.  D.  Eggleston  and 
Robert  W.  Bruere  in  The  Work  of  the  Rural 
School.  Speaking  of  the  sanitary  conditions  in  most 
of  our  rural  schools,  they  say,  “It  is  not  merely  bad 
— it  is  too  vile  for  description.  Tens  of  thousands 
of  schools  have  no  outhouse  for  either  sex,  and  thou¬ 
sands  of  others  have  one  insanitary  outhouse  for  the 
girls  and  none  for  the  boys.”  They  also  call  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  fact  that  where  outhouses  exist  there  is  no 
need  to  have  them  so  located  that  girls  and  boys  must 
pass  each  other  to  reach  them  or  so  close  that  conver¬ 
sation  can  be  heard  from  one  to  the  other.  We  are 
also  reminded  of  the  fact  that  there  is  no  law  against 
building  trellises  and  planting  flowers  to  guard  the 
approaches  to  otherwise  unsightly  outhouses. 

While  conditions  are  distressing  in  the  poorer 
schools,  we  must  remember  that  there  are  other  places 
where  for  various  reasons  there  are  no  schools  at  all. 
The  June,  1922,  issue  of  The  Journal  of  The  Na¬ 
tional  Education  Association  says:  “Three  years  ago 
many  schools  were  closed  because  of  a  shortage  of 
teachers.  During  the  coming  year  many  schools  may 
not  open  because  of  the  shortage  of  funds  due  to  poor 
crops,  the  havoc  of  floods,  and  depression  in  industry.” 

There  are  many  forces  operating  to  render  schools 
ineffective  in  particular  communities.  This  was  re¬ 
vealed  by  a  recent  study  made  by  the  National  Child 
Labor  Committee  in  West  Virginia.  In  one  district 
with  a  school  population  of  forty-five,  the  regular  at¬ 
tendance  was  three  pupils,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
district  was  split  into  factions  over  the  question  of  the 


100 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


location  of  a  new  state  road.  In  one  county  several 
schools  had  been  closed  for  seven  years  and  others 
for  two  years,  yet  the  same  county  voted  $70,000 
for  the  erection  of  a  soldiers’  memorial.  Three 
schoolhouses  in  one  county  were  burned  down  in  a 
single  year.  In  one  case  the  reason  assigned  was  an 
attempt  made  to  enforce  the  compulsory  education 
law;  in  the  second  case  the  reason  given  was  the  loca¬ 
tion  of  the  school  building;  in  the  third  instance  the 
building  was  burned  because  the  teacher  of  the  school 
was  the  daughter  of  a  revenue  officer.  Years  ago 
Horace  Mann  said,  “I  would  much  sooner  surrender 
a  portion  of  the  territory  of  the  commonwealth  to  an 
ambitious  neighbor  than  I  would  surrender  the  minds 
of  its  children  to  the  dominion  of  ignorance.”  Doubt¬ 
less  Horace  Mann  was  wise  in  his  judgment  on  this 
matter,  yet  we  who  would  valiantly  refuse  to  surrender 
a  foot  of  territory  are  unconcernedly  allowing  many 
American  girls  and  boys  to  grow  up  with  little  or  no 
education.  The  success  of  our  experiment  in  popular 
government  is  not  yet  assured  in  America,  and  the 
effectiveness  of  our  public  school  system  is  an  impor¬ 
tant  factor  in  determining  what  the  future  shall  bring 
forth. 


MANY  ILLITERATE 

When,  in  1917,  we  called  our  men  to  the  colors, 
we  found  that  twenty-five  per  cent  of  them  were  illit¬ 
erate.  They  could  not  sign  their  own  names.  They 
could  not  read  the  manual  of  arms.  They  could  not 
read  the  orders  posted  on  bulletin  boards.  They  could 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


101 


not  understand  the  signals  or  follow  the  signal  corps 
in  time  of  battle.  We  asked  these  men  to  sacrifice 
their  occupations,  their  homes,  their  friends,  and  their 
associations  to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy, 
when  democracy  had  never  so  much  as  taught  them 
to  read  and  write. 

We  discovered  that  there  were  multitudes  of  people 
who  had  once  had  a  little  schooling,  but  who  had  long 
since  ceased  to  practise  the  arts  of  reading  and  writ¬ 
ing.  They  were  reported  “literate,”  although  for  all 
practical  purposes  they  were  illiterate.  We  discov¬ 
ered  also  that  the  progress  of  compulsory  education 
could  not  be  judged  solely  by  the  laws  written  on  the 
statute  books.  The  final  test  is  the  actual  number  of 
pupils  who  attend  school  and  not  the  laws  which  are 
supposed  to  control  such  attendance.  In  the  death 
house  at  Sing  Sing  in  the  state  of  New  York,  “Bull” 
Cassidy,  a  murderer,  on  the  day  of  his  execution 
turned  to  the  warden  and  said,  “Ain’t  it  awful  (only 
he  used  a  stronger  word),  Warden,  that  a  fellow’s  got 
to  die  just  when  he’s  learned  to  write  his  name!” 
“Bull”  Cassidy  was  an  American  citizen,  but  his  own 
country  never  sent  him  to  school  until  he  landed  in 
Sing  Sing  Prison.  His  schooling  there  was  compul¬ 
sory,  and  before  he  graduated  to  the  electric  chair, 
society  saw  to  it  that  he  could  write. 

SCHOOL  ATTENDANCE  NEGLECTED 

In  the  matter  of  school  attendance  conditions  were 
found  to  be  particularly  distressing  in  rural  regions. 
It  was  discovered  that  in  ten  states  the  period  of  at- 


102 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


tendance  required  by  law  was  less  than  five  months, 
and  that,  in  addition,  in  many  regions,  because  of  the 
pressure  of  work  on  the  farm,  the  children  attended 
only  a  little  more  than  half  the  time  that  the  schools 
were  in  session.  Many  of  these  pupils  were  so  ir¬ 
regular  in  attendance  that  they  entirely  failed  to 
“make  their  grade.”  Thus  they  were  started  on 
the  toboggan  slide  which  almost  inevitably  ends  in  an 
educational  fiasco  for  the  individual  concerned.  In 
one  state  alone  it  was  found  that  nearly  11,000  chil¬ 
dren  failed  to  enrol  in  any  school  during  the  year.  In 
another  state  a  rural  inspector  reported  1,700  chil¬ 
dren  in  his  district  who  did  not  attend  a  day  of  school 
during  the  year.  “So  many  of  them  stay  out  in  the 
fall  and  spring  to  help  in  the  beet  fields,”  he  said.  In 
some  cases  the  school  officials  are  authorized  by  law 
to  consider  need  for  agricultural  labor  in  excusing  chil¬ 
dren  from  attending  school. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  on  the  average  the  American 
child  leaves  school  at  the  sixth  grade  or  that  in  a 
number  of  counties  in  Alabama  it  was  discovered  that 
thirty  per  cent  of  the  working  children  had  completed 
no  grade  in  school;  twenty-five  per  cent  had  reached 
the  fifth  grade,  fifteen  per  cent  the  sixth,  and  eleven 
per  cent  the  eighth.  The  National  Child  Labor  Com¬ 
mittee  recently  reported  that  a  million  school  children 
between  the  ages  of  ten  and  fifteen  years  were  pre¬ 
maturely  leaving  school  each  year  and  going  to  work 
because  there  is  not  adequate  legislation  or  enforce¬ 
ment  of  legislation  to  prevent  it. 


Nine  motor  busses  bring  in  country  children  to  this  school  from  a  community  extending 
over  160  square  miles.  Special  provision  is  made  for  vocational,  agricultural  and  home¬ 
making  training  for  the  260  pupils  enrolled.  A  fine  gymnasium  and  a  well-equipped  kitchen 
minister  to  physical  and,  therefore,  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  the  girls  and  boys. 


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EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


103 


BUILDINGS  INADEQUATE  AND  TEACHERS  UNTRAINED 

When  we  begin  to  talk  about  actually  sending  chil¬ 
dren  to  school,  we  are  faced  with  the  fact  that  our 
school  equipment  is  entirely  inadequate  for  them.  In 
one  state  it  was  discovered  that  if  all  the  children  in 
the  state  who  ought  to  attend  school  should  under¬ 
take  to  attend  at  one  time,  seating  space  for  forty  out 
of  every  one  hundred  would  be  lacking. 

It  is  not,  however,  at  the  point  of  seating  space 
alone  that  we  have  been  starving  our  schools.  The 
low  salaries  paid  to  teachers  have  made  it  necessary 
in  many  instances  to  employ  individuals  wofully 
lacking  in  preparation  for  their  work,  and  in  other 
cases  to  dispense  with  school  altogether  because  no 
teachers  could  be  found.  When  the  “Back-to-School” 
drive  was  in  progress  a  short  time  ago,  it  was  discov¬ 
ered  that,  in  a  considerable  number  of  communities, 
the  campaign  could  not  be  put  on  because  the  schools 
were  closed  for  want  of  teachers.  There  are  in  the 
United  States  approximately  600,000  public-school 
teachers.  One  half  of  these  have  had  no  professional 
training  for  their  work  whatsoever.  Thirty  thousand 
have  never  gone  beyond  the  eighth  grade,  and  some 
have  only  the  equivalent  of  a  fourth  or  fifth  grade 
training.  The  relation  of  this  situation  to  the  matter 
of  salary  is  clear.  It  is  little  wonder  that  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  teachers  leave  the  profession 
annually  and  that  their  places  are  largely  filled  by  un¬ 
trained  and  inexperienced  recruits. 

Eight  million  of  our  school  children  are  being 


104  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

trained  in  what  is  commonly  known  as  the  “box  car” 
type  of  schoolhouse  with  one  or,  at  most,  two  teachers. 
Such  a  school  may  once  have  been  relatively  adequate 
to  the  needs,  but  if  so,  it  can  no  longer  be  so  classed. 
It  is  estimated  that  170,000  of  the  210,000  one-teacher 
schools  can  and  should  be  consolidated  with  other 
schools.  There  are  at  present  10,500  consolidated 
schools  in  the  country  with  the  states  of  Ohio,  In¬ 
diana,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Washington,  and  Louisiana 
leading.  The  needs  of  the  present  can  never  be  met 
by  the  plans  and  equipment  which  were  evolved 
chiefly  for  meeting  the  needs  of  pioneer  communities. 
Consolidated  schools,  higher  standards  for  teachers, 
more  thorough  supervision,  and  rigid  application  of 
the  laws  of  sanitation  are  some  of  the  steps  in  the  path 
of  progress. 

A  SURVEY  OF  NEW  YORK  STATE  SCHOOLS 

A  recent  study  of  the  eleven  thousand  schools  in 
New  York  State  made  by  the  New  York  State  League 
of  Women  Voters  with  the  cooperation  of  the  State 
Department  of  Education,  revealed  some  interesting 
facts.  It  was  discovered  that  15  schools  in  the  state 
were  in  operation  with  only  one  pupil  each ;  52  schools 
had  two  pupils  each;  167  had  three  pupils  each;  259 
had  four  pupils  each;  392  had  five  pupils  each;  and 
3,015  schools  had  fewer  than  ten  pupils  each.  Many 
schools  were  found  to  have  no  water  supply  of 
their  own.  They  were  dependent  upon  the  wells  of 
neighbors,  and,  in  some  cases  the  nearest  well  was 
half  a  mile  away.  In  winter  some  of  the  schools 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


105 


are  entirely  without  water  either  for  washing  or 
drinking.  All  of  the  children  from  one  school 
were  reported  ill  as  the  result  of  drinking  con¬ 
taminated  water  from  a  neighbor’s  well.  In  one  case, 
a  high  school  of  300  pupils  had  no  drinking  fountains 
or  individual  cups,  and,  in  the  same  district,  the  inves¬ 
tigator  reported,  “The  condition  of  many  children  in 
the  first,  second,  and  third  grades  is  a  menace  to  the 
clean  ones.  Many  are  covered  with  vermin  and  un¬ 
sightly  sores.”  Another  high  school  in  the  same  county 
had  no  lavatories  or  individual  towels,  drinking  cups, 
or  fountains.  In  some  cases  where  indoor  toilets  were 
provided,  they  were  frozen  and  entirely  out  of  use 
several  months  each  year.  Schools  were  found  which 
had  not  been  cleaned  for  two  years.  One  investigator 
described  several  schools  as  “hardly  better  than  hog¬ 
pens.”  One  school  did  not  even  own  a  broom.  Many 
teachers  complained  of  the  great  amount  of  dust,  and 
said  that  their  requests  for  oil  for  floors  had  not  been 
granted.  Some  of  the  school  buildings  in  use  are 
over  one  hundred  years  old,  and  half  of  them  are  said 
to  be  more  than  fifty  years  old.  The  unwholesome 
surroundings  in  many  of  the  schools  tended,  not  only 
to  indifference  and  indolence  on  the  part  of  the  teach¬ 
ers,  but  also  to  retardation  on  the  part  of  the  pupils. 

When  these  appalling,  almost  incredible  facts  were 
revealed,  the  question  was  at  once  raised:  “If  this  can 
be  true  of  one  state,  what  is  the  situation  in  the  other 
forty-seven?  If  children  are  being  cheated  in  ‘typical 
American  communities’  in  New  York  State,  what  is 
happening  in  ‘typical  American  communities’  in  other 


106  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

states?”  The  fact  is  that  while  New  York  State  may 
not  be  at  the  head  of  the  list,  she  is  far  from  being 
the  chief  of  sinners  in  this  matter,  as  the  present 
writer  can  testify  from  rather  extended  observation. 

Some  of  the  conditions  which  might  be  described 
would  sound  like  a  chapter  out  of  the  dark  ages. 
The  romance  which  is  supposed  to  surround  the  little 
red  schoolhouse  can  never  compensate  for  the  evils 
wrought  by  ignorant  teachers,  unsanitary  conditions, 
and  unstimulating  associations.  A  study  made  by 
Dr.  Thomas  D.  Wood  of  Teachers  College,  and  which 
included  the  health  records  of  half  a  million  children, 
revealed  the  fact  that  in  every  particular,  even  to  that 
of  proper  nourishment,  the  city  child  was  ahead  of 
the  country  child.  And  the  fact  that  the  percentage 
of  city  pupils  who  finish  high  school  is  six  times  as 
great  as  the  percentage  of  rural  pupils  is  a  silent  tes¬ 
timony  to  the  handicap  under  which  our  rural  girls 
and  boys  are  living  at  present.  We  have  come  to  a 
new  day  and  one  in  which  the  glory  of  the  past  is  in 
danger  of  becoming  the  disgrace  of  the  present.  We 
do  not  mean  to  infer  that  conditions  are  ideal  in  the 
schools  of  our  great  cities, — the  great  menace  here 
being  inadequate  facilities  and  consequent  over-crowd¬ 
ing, — but  they  are,  as  a  rule,  so  much  better  than  the 
average  rural  school  that  between  them  is  a  great  gulf. 

CONDITIONS  CAN  BE  IMPROVED 

In  very  many  cases  conditions  in  our  rural  schools 
can  be  greatly  improved  without  the  expenditure  of 
money,  or  at  little  expense  when  a  few  leaders  in  the 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


107 


community  take  the  matter  in  hand.  Schoolhouses 
can  be  cleaned;  floors  can  be  oiled;  pure,  clean  water 
can  be  provided,  and,  if  sanitary  cups  and  towels  can¬ 
not  be  furnished  by  the  community,  each  pupil  may 
provide  his  own;  lighting  arrangements  can  be  modi¬ 
fied  when  necessary,  and  proper  window  ventilators 
can  be  secured  at  slight  expense.  The  room  in  which 
a  child  is  expected  to  spend  five  or  more  hours  five 
days  of  the  week  should  at  least  be  made  safe,  decent, 
and  wholesome.  It  should  no  longer  be  possible  for 
anyone  to  say,  as  a  representative  committee  did  re¬ 
cently,  after  studying  the  matter,  that  “the  country 
schoolhouse  is  the  worst,  the  most  unsanitary  and  in¬ 
adequate  type  of  building  in  the  whole  country,  in¬ 
cluding,  not  only  those  used  for  human  beings,  but 
also  those  used  for  domestic  animals/’ 

We  would  not  blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  we 
have  many  thousands  of  well-trained,  consecrated 
teachers  and  many  schools  in  comfortable  buildings, 
with  sanitary  surroundings  and  with  more  or  less  ade¬ 
quate  equipment  in  which  thousands  of  boys  and  girls 
are  receiving  excellent  training.  The  fact  remains, 
however,  that  there  are  so  many  unlovely  conditions 
in  our  school  systems  today  that  the  situation  has  be¬ 
come  a  national  menace.  It  is  significant  that  Presi¬ 
dent  Harding  was  moved  recently  to  designate  by 
proclamation  a  special  period  to  be  known  as  Ameri¬ 
can  Education  Week,  during  which  the  citizens  were 
urged  to  give  particular  attention  to  means  of  reduc¬ 
ing  illiteracy  and  remedying  the  defects  in  our  school 
systems. 


108 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


URGENT  NEED  FOR  FEDERAL  AID 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  National  Education 
Association  has  become  sponsor  for  a  bill  which  pro¬ 
vides  for  the  creation  of  a  national  department  of 
education  and  for  the  appropriation  of  funds  from  the 
national  treasury  for  the  promotion  of  education  in 
the  several  states.  It  has  been  strongly  felt  that,  in¬ 
asmuch  as  the  matter  of  education  is  of  vital  concern 
to  the  nation  as  well  as  to  the  local  community,  the 
nation  must,  for  its  own  sake,  see  to  it  that  educa¬ 
tional  opportunity  for  its  girls  and  boys  is  more  evenly 
distributed  than  it  is  today.  The  idea  is,  not  to  have 
education  nationally  controlled,  but  to  have  it  nation¬ 
ally  assisted  where  it  is  today  weakest.  The  Knights 
of  Columbus  have,  perhaps,  been  the  most  bitter  op¬ 
ponents  of  the  proposed  measure.  A's  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  is  not  a  new  policy  for  the  Federal  Govern¬ 
ment  to  grant  aid  to  public  education.  From  the 
earliest  days  of  our  history  down  to  the  present  time, 
it  has  aided  education  both  through  grants  of  public 
land  and  of  money.  Now  that  the  per  capita  resources 
of  the  country  are  so  unequal,  it  would  seem  to  be 
both  fair  and  proper  that  the  Federal  Government 
should  undertake  more  nearly  to  equalize  educational 
opportunities  by  granting  aid  where  it  is  most  needed. 

DEMAND  FOR  MORE  ADVANCED  TRAINING 

While  our  attention  thus  far  has  been  chiefly  upon 
the  deficiencies  and  needs  of  our  public  elementary 
schools  and  upon  problems  of  illiteracy,  we  must  re- 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY  109 

mind  ourselves  that  this  is  but  the  beginning  of  edu¬ 
cation.  Much  of  the  time  in  the  elementary  grades  is 
spent  upon  acquiring  the  tools  for  getting  an  educa¬ 
tion.  It  was  very  soon  realized  that  elementary 
schools  alone  would  never  make  democracy  safe  or 
efficient,  and  so  the  American  high  school  came  into 
existence.  Its  growth  has  been  phenomenal.  During 
the  last  twenty  years  the  high  school  enrolment  of  the 
country  has  increased  six  times  as  fast  as  the  popula¬ 
tion.  In  California  the  high  school  enrolment  has 
increased  from  10,000  in  1909  to  196,000  in  1921. 
New  York  City  has  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  pupils 
enroled  in  its  high  schools.  There  seems  to  be  a 
common  agreement  among  many  educators  that  the 
general  level  of  American  intelligence  must  be  placed 
at  the  point  of  graduation  from  a  standardized  high 
school.  The  complexities  of  the  new  day  in  which  we 
live  demand  more  than  an  elementary  training,  and 
our  American  high  school  is  the  answer  to  that  need. 
Fortunate  is  that  boy  or  girl  who  has  access  to  a  well- 
ordered  public  school  and  a  modern  public  high  school, 
for  millions  of  boys  and  girls  are,  for  one  reason  or 
another,  deprived  of  such  advantages.  The  time  must 
come  when  “no  child  shall  be  damned  to  illiteracy  be¬ 
cause  he  chances  to  be  born  in  one  of  the  waste  places 
of  the  nation.” 

EDUCATION  A  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM 

We  have  emphasized  the  fact  that  public  education 
is  a  matter  of  national  concern  and  therefore  a  matter 
which  affects  the  welfare  .of  every  citizen  in  the  na- 


110 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


tion.  Our  safety  and  continued  existence  as  a  democ¬ 
racy  are  dependent  upon  it.  As  citizens  of  a  great 
free  country  the  situation  which  exists  challenges  us 
to  attention  and  to  vigorous  action,  but  as  citizens  of 
the  democracy  of  God  on  earth  our  obligations  are 
even  more  insistent.  How,  indeed,  can  the  good  and 
worth-while  things  of  life  be  more  evenly  distributed 
while  we  permit  the  very  channels  through  which  they 
are  to  be  received  to  be  blocked?  We  are  told  that  in 
India  today  one  of  the  problems  of  the  Christian 
Church  is  the  large  illiterate  constituency  pleading  for 
Christian  baptism.  The  perils  of  an  illiterate  Church 
in  India  and  in  other  foreign  fields  are  real  and 
threatening.  Yet  in  the  United  States  we  have  thou¬ 
sands  of  Christians  who  cannot  read  their  Bibles,  and 
we  have  churches,  not  a  few,  where  the  percentage  of 
illiteracy  in  the  membership  ranges  from  twenty-five 
per  cent  upward.  The  hope  in  such  a  situation  is  that 
we  can  readily  see  its  dangers.  These  perils  can  be 
•  remedied  when  those  who  profess  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  stand  ready  and  eager  to  do  their  part  in  mak¬ 
ing  the  schools  in  their  own  communities  what  they 
ought  to  be. 

The  path  to  such  an  achievement  is  not  hidden  or 
mysterious.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  all  the  Chris¬ 
tians  in  the  country  were  to  insist  in  their  respective 
communities  that  decent  and  adequate  schoolhouses 
should  be  provided;  that  they  should  be  kept  clean; 
that  dusty  floors  should  be  made  dustless;  that  desks 
and  seats  should  fit  the  pupils;  that  toilet  arrange¬ 
ments  should  be  decent  and  sanitary;  that  pure  water 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


111 


should  be  made  available;  that,  where  needed,  the  cold 
unsatisfactory  lunch  should  be  supplemented  by  some¬ 
thing  hot  and  nourishing;  that  real  teaching  equip¬ 
ment  should  be  provided;  that,  where  proper,  schools 
should  be  consolidated;  that  trained  teachers  should  be 
secured;  that  the  school  term  should  be  made,  not  as 
short  as  possible,  but  as  long  as  possible;  that  child 
labor  should  be  eliminated;  that  infection  and  con¬ 
tagion  should  be  checked;  that,  in  short,  the  boys  and 
girls  of  our  communities  should  be  treated,  not  only 
as  human  beings,  but  as  the  most  precious  human 
beings  in  all  the  world,  those  upon  whom  the  future 
must  depend  and  out  of  whom  it  must  be  built.  Sup¬ 
pose,  then,  that  Christians,  the  Christians  right  here 
and  now  in  America  should  undertake  to  set  some  of 
these  wrong  things  right.  In  a  week  they  could  do  a 
great  deal,  in  a  month  much  more.  Within  a  year  the 
total  would  be  incalculable,  and  within  a  few  years  a 
national  disgrace  could  be  transformed  into  a  national 
glory.  By  the  simple  process  of  doing  their  duty  in 
the  communities  in  which  they  live,  the  followers  of 
Jesus  Christ  have  it  within  their  power  to  do  these 
things.  Is  not  the  responsibility  upon  their  heads  if 
they  do  them  not? 

There  have  always  been  certain  aspects  of  the  edu¬ 
cational  situation  which  were  too  aggravated  for  indi¬ 
vidual  communities  to  handle.  In  such  cases  it  has 
often  been  the  Christian  Church  that  has  been  the  first 
agency  to  grapple  with  the  conditions  of  educational 
need.  The  Church  has  never  sought  to  do  what  the 
community  could  do  for  itself,  but  to  meet  cases  of 


112  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

urgent  need.  Instinctively  the  Church  has  felt  that  its 
mission  was  to  drive  out  the  darkness  of  ignorance  by 
bringing  in  the  light  of  education.  There  has  not  been 
an  undue  amount  of  theorizing  about  it,  but  the 
Church  has  gone  at  the  job  and  done  it  as  well  as  she 
could  with  the  resources  which  were  placed  at  her  dis¬ 
posal.  We  may  perhaps  note  to  advantage  some  of 
these  tasks  which  the  Church  has  bravely  undertaken. 

SPECIAL  NEED  AMONG  MEXICANS  AND  SPANISH 

AMERICANS 

It  was  in  1848  that  by  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe 
Hidalgo  made  with  Mexico  we  acquired  a  vast  terri¬ 
tory  which  included  most  of  what  we  now  refer  to  as 
our  great  Southwest.  It  was  indeed  a  sparsely  settled 
country,  but,  such  as  it  was,  it  had  been  for  more  than 
three  centuries  under  Spanish  and  Mexican  control. 
Schools  were  almost  unknown,  the  population  was  illit¬ 
erate,  and  the  language  was  Spanish,  not  English. 
Even  as  late  as  1857  we  are  t°ld  there  were  in  the 
entire  territory  of  New  Mexico  only  460  pupils  attend¬ 
ing  school,  or  one  to  every  125  of  the  population.  The 
population  of  New  Mexico  at  the  time  was  61,547. 

The  federal  government  did  little  to  promote  educa¬ 
tion.  In  1855-56  the  territorial  legislature  approved 
a  bill  establishing  a  common  school  system  for  the 
territory  to  be  supported  by  public  taxation.  The 
measure  was  submitted  to  the  people  for  approval. 
Instead  of  being  approved  it  was  rejected  by  a  vote 
of  37  to  5,016.  It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  mention  that 
about  the  same  time  the  United  States  government, 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


113 


acting  from  a  desire  to  encourage  education  in  the 
territory,  purchased  a  number  of  books  and  sent  them 
to  New  Mexico.  The  territorial  legislature,  however, 
refused  to  pay  the  freight  charges  on  the  books  and 
left  them  to  be  sold  for  the  freight  or  to  be  destroyed 
at  the  discretion  of  the  freight  agent.  As  late  as  1870, 
a  home  missionary  says  that  in  New  Mexico  there 
was  not  a  public  schoolhouse  to  be  found,  hardly  a 
Bible  in  one  family  in  a  thousand,  and  only  a  few 
other  books.  In  fact,  New  Mexico  did  not  have  a 
public  school  law  until  1891.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
the  1910  Census  reported  an  illiterate  group  in  New 
Mexico  amounting  to  20.2  per  cent  of  the  population 
over  ten  years  of  age  or  that  the  1920  census  reported 
a  larger  percentage  of  native-born  white  illiteracy  for 
New  Mexico  than  for  any  other  state  in  the  Union. 

In  the  face  of  such  need,  the  Church  could  do 
naught  but  respond.  Home  missionaries  entered  the 
region  almost  as  soon  as  the  Stars  and  Stripes  were 
hoisted  over  it.  Their  best  efforts  were,  however,  of 
little  avail  in  the  face  of  the  ignorance  which  pre¬ 
vailed,  and  they  were  very  soon  driven  to  do  educa¬ 
tional  work.  Even  a  Sunday-school  could  not  be  con¬ 
ducted  effectively  until  pupils  had  been  taught  to  read. 
Informal  schools  sometimes  taught  by  the  wives  of  the 
missionaries  were  organized.  Then  the  need  for  regu¬ 
larly  designated  teachers  was  felt.  Plaza  schools  were 
started  and,  on  the  whole,  a  large  amount  of  educa¬ 
tional  work  was  done. 

A’s  time  went  on,  still  other  needs  appeared  and 
boarding-schools  were  organized  where  more  advanced 


114  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

training  and  training  under  more  auspicious  circum¬ 
stances  than  were  provided  by  the  ordinary  day  school 
arrangement  in  the  plazas  could  be  provided.  These 
schools  proved  to  be,  not  only  the  simplest  and  most 
effective  means  for  Christian  evangelization,  but  they 
also  furnished  the  means  for  training  Christian  lead¬ 
ers.  A  little  later,  particularly  in  more  recent  years, 
large  numbers  of  Mexicans  migrated  to  the  United 
States  and  settled  in  Texas,  Arizona,  California,  New 
Mexico,  Colorado,  and  other  states.  These  Mexicans 
often  brought  or  raised  large  families  of  children  who 
were  being  wofully  neglected  in  multitudes  of  ways. 
This  situation  presented  a  fresh  challenge  to  extend 
the  educational  work  already  begun.  Today  in  our 
border  states  there  are  approximately  forty  schools 
supported  by  churches  through  their  missionary 
agencies,  which  are  devoted  to  the  training  of  boys 
and  girls  from  Spanish-American  and  Mexican  homes 
in  our  Southwest.  These  schools  are  teaching  the 
English  language  to  many  pupils  who  otherwise  would 
grow  up  with  a  working  knowledge  of  Spanish  only. 
They  are  giving  a  helping  and  encouraging  hand  to 
multitudes  who  would  never  have  the  courage  to  stay 
on  in  the  public  school  and  they  are  bringing  under 
genuine  Christian  influences  many  who  would,  under 
other  conditions,  never  have  a  chance  at  the  best  things 
in  life. 

How  difficult  the  problem  of  Americanization  and 
Christianization  is  among  our  Spanish-speaking  Amer¬ 
icans,  it  is  hard  for  some  more  favored  to  appreciate. 
They  cannot  understand  quite  why  it  is  that  girls  and 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


115 


boys  born  in  America  grow  to  maturity  without  learn¬ 
ing  the  English  language  or  how  young  men  called 
under  the  draft  during  the  War  honestly  declared  that 
they  did  not  know  that  they  were  American  citizens. 
One  has  only  to  go  back  into  the  highlands  of  New 
Mexico,  however,  twenty-five,  forty,  fifty,  or  even 
more  miles  from  the  railroad  and  visit  the  little  com¬ 
munities  hidden  away  in  the  mountains  to  have  the 
matter  made  quite  clear.  How,  indeed,  could  a  child 
learn  English  if  in  all  his  life  he  had  never  heard  any¬ 
thing  but  Spanish  spoken?  Even  if  he  knew  English, 
what  good  would  it  do  him  so  long  as  his  father  and 
mother  and  his  brothers  and  sisters  and  his  playmates 
and  neighbors  spoke  and  understood  only  Spanish? 
What  difference  does  it  make  that  his  father  is  an 
American  citizen  or  that  he  is  a  potential  president  of 
the  republic?  Such  facts  do  not  bring  with  them  the 
knowledge  of  the  English  language  or  any  introduc¬ 
tion  to  Christian  ideals  or  American  traditions. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  difficult  spots  in  our  national 
life.  They  have  also  served  to  call  attention  to  the 
essential  perseverance  and  heroism  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  staying  by  a  hard  job  even  when  there  were 
discouragements  in  the  way  and  when  it  would  have 
been  easy  to  say  that  the  job  belonged  to  someone  else 
and  not  to  the  Church.  There  is  much  yet  to  be  done, 
but  our  great  Southwest  is  a  finer  and  a  more  whole¬ 
some  place  in  which  to  live  and  thousands  of  indi¬ 
viduals  are  living  richer,  freer,  fuller,  and  more  Chris¬ 
tian  lives  because  the  Christian  churches  all  over 
America  have,  for  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century, 


116  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

stood  back  of  their  missionary  organizations  in  their 
attempts  to  carry  the  gospel  of  enlightenment  to  the 
Spanish-speaking  boys  and  girls  of  a  vast  section  of 
our  country  through  the  agency  of  mission  schools. 

NEGRO  MISSION  SCHOOLS 

Once  more  the  Church  faced  a  tremendous  educa¬ 
tional  need  in  the  person  of  the  American  Negro.  A 
little  more  than  half  a  century  ago  four  million  un¬ 
educated  American  Negroes  faced  the  nation.  The 
communities  in  which  they  lived,  weakened  by  a  long 
and  unsuccessful  struggle,  were  entirely  unprepared  to 
cope  with  the  situation.  Again  the  Church  stepped 
forward  and,  without  asking  to  be  excused  from  an 
obligation  which  it  might  have  avoided,  undertook  to 
do  its  bit  in  teaching  the  American  Negro.  At  first 
the  aim  was  avowedly  to  teach  the  Negro  to  read  and 
write.  Schools  were  many  in  number,  but  crude  in 
form.  Fathers  and  mothers  and  grandfathers  and 
grandmothers  were  grouped  with  their  children  and 
their  children’s  children  around  the  open  primer  to 
master  the  intricacies  of  the  a  b  c’s. 

A  visitor  to  one  of  these  early  schools  gives  his 
impression  of  it  as  follows : 

“On  rough  benches  sat  rougher  people — youth,  chil¬ 
dren,  men,  and  women — in  rags  of  linsey-woolsey  and 
jeans,  patched  like  Joseph’s  coat,  not  through  pride 
and  plenty,  but  through  poverty,  bootless  and  shoeless 
and  stockingless,  knowledgeless  certainly,  most  would 
have  said  brainless.  .  .  .  There  they  sat,  crouching 
over  their  primers,  spelling  with  difficulty  the  easiest 


EDUCATION  IN  A  DEMOCRACY 


117 


words,  answering  stammeringly  the  simplest  questions, 
strong  only  in  the  gift  of  song  and  in  the  faith  of 
their  teachers.” 

Such  schools  marked  the  beginning,  but  out  of  them 
grew  the  graded  school,  the  boarding-school,  the 
normal  school,  the  academy,  and  the  college  and  pro¬ 
fessional  school,  until  the  schools  for  Negroes  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  Christian  people  of  America  and  by  the 
churches  of  America  total  into  the  hundreds,  and  the 
number  of  pupils  who  have  been  taught  by  their  gradu¬ 
ates  run  into  the  millions.  Enormous  is  the  impress 
which  the  mission  schools  for  Negroes  have  made 
upon  our  national  life  and  upon  the  Negro  constitu¬ 
ency  of  the  Christian  churches.  It  is  true  that  in  spite 
of  all  that  has  been  done,  the  education  of  the  Negro 
in  America  is  only  well  under  way,  but  any  story  of 
the  American  Negro,  or,  in  fact,  any  story  of  America 
herself  which  leaves  out  of  account  the  achievements 
of  the  schools  which  have  been  supported  for  our 
neglected  populations  by  our  churches  through  the  mis¬ 
sion  boards,  is  a  story  which  is  incomplete  and  unsat¬ 
isfactory.  In  the  building  of  America  and  in  the 
maintaining  of  Christian  American  ideals  in  our  coun¬ 
try,  the  mission  school  has  made  an  imperishable 
place  for  itself  in  our  national  history. 

Into  these  mission  schools  have  come  the  uncouth, 
the  untutored,  the  neglected  youth  of  our  country — 
the  Mexican,  the  Spanish-American,  the  Negro,  the 
American  Indian,  the  Mountaineer  and  many  others. 
And  out  of  the  mission  school  has  gone  a  steady 
stream  of  clean,  trained,  Christian  homemakers,  car- 


118 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


penters,  blacksmiths,  plumbers,  tailors,  teachers,  busi¬ 
ness  men,  stenographers,  lawyers,  dentists,  pharma¬ 
cists,  nurses,  doctors,  ministers,  and  others  who  have 
gone  back  to  carry  to  many  in  their  respective  groups 
something  of  the  spirit  and  something  of  the  content 
of  the  things  which  they  have  gained  in  the  mission 
school.  Sometimes  equipment  has  been  poor;  some¬ 
times  teachers  have  been  less  effective  than  they  ought 
to  have  been;  sometimes  serious  mistakes  have  been 
made,  and  always  much  of  the  work  that  was  pressing 
and  urgent  has,  of  necessity,  been  left  undone.  But 
none  of  these  things  can  spoil  the  glory  of  an  achieve¬ 
ment  which  must  always  rank  high  in  Christian 
annals. 


A  TIME  OF  CRISIS 

Education  is  at  a  moment  of  crisis  in  America.  To 

/ 

stand  still  is  to  retreat.  The  day  can  still  be  saved, 
and  saved  by  the  Christians  in  our  local  communities, 
from  one  end  of  our  country  to  the  other.  The  situa¬ 
tion  comes  to  a  focus  in  the  simple  question:  Do  we 
as  people,  community  by  community,  state  by  state, 
and  in  our  united  capacity  as  a  nation,  think  highly 
enough  of  our  children,  our  nation,  and  the  coming 
of  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  on  earth  to  be  willing 
to  pay  the  price  demanded  for  placing  a  clean,  ade¬ 
quate,  well-equipped,  well-taught  school  within  reach 
of  every  boy  and  girl  in  America;  and  then  to  exer¬ 
cise  our  common  prerogative  in  seeing  that  every  child 
in  America  takes  advantage  of  the  educational  oppor¬ 
tunities  which  are  placed  in  his  way? 


GLIMPSES  OF  A  SEVEN-DAY-A-WEEK  CHURCH  PROGRAM 

The  demands  made  upon  a  modern  home  mission  plant  are 
many  and  varied.  To  supply  a  continuous  program  of  training 
and  recreation  for  all  ages  of  both  sexes  during  the  extra-school 
hours  and  the  long  vacation  periods  demands  buildings,  equip¬ 
ment,  and  an  adequate  and  thoroughly  trained  staff. 


A  large,  well  ventilated  room,  the  children  comfortably  seated,  without  coats  and 
hats,  and  a  staff  of  teachers  trained  to  lead  properly  graded  classes  will  go  far 
toward  making  Sunday  School  a  place,  not  to  be  endured  once  a  week,  but  genuinely 


CHAPTER  V 

Christian  Nurture  in  the  Church  School 

One  fact  stands  out  with  ever  increasing  clearness 
as  the  days  pass ;  namely,  that  the  most  important  task 
facing  the  Christian  Church  in  America  is  the  religious 
education  of  American  youth. 

The  number  of  those  who  are  committed  whole¬ 
heartedly  to  this  proposition  is  increasing  rapidly,  and 
there  are  many  reasons  for  believing  that  the  idea 
which  underlies  it  is  destined  to  work  a  more  radical 
transformation  in  the  aims  and  methods  of  the  Church 
than  has  any  other  idea  for  many  decades. 

URGENT  NEED  FOR  A  WORTH-WHILE  RELIGION 

It  is  perhaps  not  extravagant  to  say  that  never  be¬ 
fore  in  the  world’s  history  has  there  been  such  a  des¬ 
perate  need  for  a  worth-while  religion  as  exists  today 
— an  enlightened  religion;  an  ethical  religion;  a  re¬ 
ligion  which  really  ministers  to  human  need ;  a  religion 
which  is  adequate  to  solve  the  great  social  questions 
of  national  and  international  scope  which  are  pressing 
for  solution;  a  religion  which  is  capable  of  under¬ 
girding  a  powerful  nation  with  righteousness  and 
building  into  it  the  moral  fiber  which  alone  will  give 
it  stability  and  make  it  a  power  for  human  betterment ; 
a  religion  which  can  make  God  and  duty  a  reality  in 
the  hearts  of  men.  Dr.  Henry  F.  Cope  stated  the  situ¬ 
ation  forcefully  when  he  said : 

“Life  is  unthinkable,  in  imagination  it  is  intolerable 

119 


120 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


in  the  future,  unless  it  be  the  life  of  a  society  con¬ 
trolled  by  religious  motives.  There  is  no  hope  for 
peace  in  our  world — either  between  nations,  classes, 
or  interests — until  we  have  substituted  for  the  motives 
of  self-interest  that  threw  the  world  into  war  the  mo¬ 
tives  of  social  living  which  Jesus  taught;  until  we 
move  the  center  of  lives  from  self  to  society,  from 
avarice  to  service,  from  lust  to  love.  The  religious 
way  is  the  only  way  under  which  the  world  of  to¬ 
morrow  can  even  exist.” 

If,  however,  it  was  a  mere  matter  of  “religion” — 
any  kind  of  religion — we  should  have  small  occasion 
for  worry.  It  was  a  wise  man  who,  after  careful 
study,  arrived  at  the  amazingly  simple  conclusion, 
“Man  is  incurably  religious.”  The  chief  mission  of 
Christianity  in  the  world  is,  not  to  supply  a  religion 
to  those  who  have  none,  but  to  provide  a  better  re¬ 
ligion  for  those  who  have  a  worse  one.  So  we  send 
missionaries  to  India,  said  to  be  the  most  religious 
country  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  to  Africa,  where 
the  native  savages  are  already  spending  more  time  in 
religious  ceremonies  than  are  many  respectable  Chris¬ 
tians  elsewhere.  Indeed,  in  America  some  of  our  most 
unlovely  conditions  are  to  be  found  in  places  and 
among  groups  where  religion  is  far  from  a  discarded 
art. 

The  question  at  issue  is,  whether  we  are  to  have  a 
.  worthy  religion  and  one  adequate  to  meet  the  demands 
which  are  made  upon  it.  Such  a  religion  does  not 
“just  happen”;  neither  is  it  the  product  of  a  single 
religious  experience.  Instead,  it  is,  like  the  religion 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  121 


of  Him  who  “increased  in  wisdom  and  stature  and  in 
favor  with  God  and  man/’  a  matter  of  gradual  growth 
plus  religious  nurture.  The  only  way  that  we  can  have 
a  nation  that  is  dominated  by  intelligent  and  ethical  re¬ 
ligious  motives  is  to  train  a  generation  of  young  people 
in  exactly  that  sort  of  religion.  If  there  is  any  other 
way  of  producing  such  a  result,  some  thousands  of 
years  of  religious  experience  of  the  race  has  failed  to 
reveal  it. 

RELIGIOUS  TRAINING  THE  SECRET  OF  ALL  RELIGIOUS 

SUCCESS 

Religious  training  of  one  sort  or  another  has  been 
the  secret  of  success  of  every  religion  which  has  won 
a  large  and  stable  following.  This  has  been  as  true 
of  the  more  primitive  religions  of  Africa  with  their 
elaborate  initiations  as  of  the  more  highly  developed 
religions  of  Judaism  and  Christianity.  It  has  always 
been  feasible  to  forecast  the  religion  of  the  next  gen¬ 
eration  by  examining  the  sort  of  religious  training  to 
which  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  preceding  generation 
were  being  subjected.  No  religion  which  neglects  to 
train  its  youth  ever  has  or  ever  can  maintain  itself  on 
any  important  scale.  In  general,  the  Protestant 
churches  have  not  seen  that  fact  as  clearly  as  has  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  but  they  have  not  altogether 
ignored  the  need,  and  their  measure  of  success  up  to 
the  present  has  been  conditioned  largely  by  the  extent 
and  effectiveness  of  the  religious  training  which  they 
have  been  able  to  provide  their  youth. 

Theoretically,  the  Protestant  churches  have  some- 


122 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


times  placed  the  chief  emphasis  in  the  making  of  re¬ 
ligious  individuals  upon  a  single  spiritual  experience, 
but  fortunately,  they  have  often  been  wiser  in  prac¬ 
tise  than  in  theory.  Multiplied  experience  has,  how¬ 
ever,  modified  even  the  theory.  One  thing  which  has 
hastened  the  process  has  been  the  experience  of  mis¬ 
sionaries  upon  the  foreign  field.  To  those  who  have 
grown  up  in  a  Christian  or  semi-Christian  atmosphere, 
it  came  as  a  great  shock  to  learn  that  earnest,  con¬ 
secrated,  and  enthusiastic  missionaries  were  refusing 
baptism  to  tens  of  thousands  who  were  pleading  for 
it,  and  doing  so  on  the  ground  that  they  had  no  one 
to  “teach”  the  converts.  Even  the  most  ardent  mis¬ 
sionary  has  been  forced  to  admit,  when  face  to  face 
with  actual  conditions,  that  the  making  of  a  Christian 
is  not  a  matter  of  a  single  experience,  but  of  a  long- 
extended  educational  process.  In  the  homeland  some 
had  not  been  so  quick  to  discover  this  fact  because 
almost  all  of  our  “converts”  had  some  sort  of  a  back¬ 
ground  provided  through  direct  or  indirect  education 
for  their  experience. 

In  America,  as  perhaps  nowhere  else  on  earth,  adult 
evangelism  has  been  made  a  science  and  organized  on 
a  scale  never  before  dreamed  of.  In  its  latest  stages 
the  revival  in  America  has  reached  the  nth  degree  of 
mechanical  efficiency.  In  spite  of  that  fact,  the  great 
stream  of  recruits  for  church  membership  has  been 
made  up  steadily  of  the  boys  and  girls  who  have  had 
religious  training.  These  boys  and  girls  became  Chris¬ 
tians  because  of  the  long-continued  work  of  faithful 
parents,  ministers,  and  teachers;  although  in  millions 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  123 


of  such  cases  an  itinerant  evangelist  has  modestly 
taken  the  credit  for  himself.  Even  the  older  indi¬ 
viduals  reached  by  the  evangelist  have  been  those  who 
have  been  made  susceptible  to  the  Christian  message 
by  some  sort  of  religious  training  in  youth.  Among 
rescue  workers  it  has  become  almost  axiomatic  that 
their  best  efforts  are  foredoomed  to  failure  unless  the 
individual  concerned  has  had  some  religious  training 
in  youth.  In  view  of  the  facts  revealed,  it  is  surpris¬ 
ing  that  we  have  often  had  so  little  theoretical  respect 
for  the  educational  method  while  in  practise  we  have 
placed  so  much  reliance  upon  it. 

THE  HOME  AND  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

In  the  early  years  of  America  the  chief  agency  for 
religious  training  was  the  home,  the  work  of  which 
was  supplemented  by  the  church  services  which  the 
boys  and  girls  were  expected  to  attend,  by  catechetical 
instruction,  and  by  the  public  schools  in  which  the 
Bible  occupied  a  prominent  place.  With  the  coming 
of  the  Sunday-school,  however,  and  with  steadily 
changing  conditions  in  home  and  school,  there  gradu¬ 
ally  developed  a  tendency  to  load  upon  the  Sunday- 
school  more  of  the  responsibility  for  the  religious 
training  of  the  youth  of  the  Church  and  community. 

This  did  not  happen  at  once  or  quickly.  In  fact, 
the  first  Sunday-schools  were  not  essentially  schools 
of  religion  at  all,  but  rather  schools  for  the  teaching 
of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  As  early  as  1784 
John  Wesley  wrote  of  them:  “Perhaps  God  may  have 
a  deeper  end  than  men  are  aware  of.  Who  knows 


124 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


but  that  some  of  these  schools  may  become  nurseries 
for  Christians  ?”  As  late  as  1816,  however,  a  Boston 
journal  in  discussing  the  Sunday-school  in  the  United 
States  said  that  while  such  schools  might  be  suitable 
for  conditions  in  the  South  and  West,  “in  New  Eng¬ 
land,  where  schools  are  brought  to  every  man’s  door, 
and  where  the  children  of  the  poor  may  be  educated 
without  expense  during  the  week,  there  are  few  cases 
where  Sunday-schools  would  be  attended  with  any 
solid  advantage.  They  might  even  prove  injurious, 
by  inducing  a  neglect  of  common  schools.”  It  is 
indeed  a  well-known  fact  that  the  Church  was  either 
indifferent  to  or  strongly  opposed  to  the  Sunday- 
school  in  the  early  days  of  its  history. 

Gradually,  however,  the  Church  adopted  the 
Sunday-school  as  its  own,  and  today  it  is  shocked 
when  anyone  suggests  that  it  ever  attempted  to  dis¬ 
own  it.  Also,  the  idea  of  the  Sunday-school  as  an 
institution  solely  for  poor  and  neglected  children 
changed  only  by  degrees.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  is  said 
to  have  been  one  of  the  first  in  America  to  break  away 
from  the  idea  that  Sunday-schools  were  essentially 
“ragged  schools.”  As  early  as  1830  he  took  his  own 
children  to  Sunday-school  and  urged  his  neighbors  to 
follow  his  example. 

Until  1826  the  religious  training  in  the  Sunday- 
schools  consisted  chiefly  in  the  memorizing  of  verses 
of  Scripture.  At  that  time  a  strong  protest  arose 
against  this  method,  and  the  idea  of  limiting  the 
Scripture  lesson  and  allotting  the  same  lesson  to  all 
the  members  of  the  class  or  groups  of  classes  appeared. 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  125 


A  quarter  of  a  century  later  a  crude  idea  of  grouping 
according  to  ability  or  age  developed. 

In  1872  the  first  “lesson  committee”  outlined  its 
lesson  plans.  In  brief,  the  proposal  was  to  have  the 
lessons  alternate  each  year  between  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments;  to  begin  with  Genesis  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  and  select  the  material  in  chronological  order, 
and  to  follow  a  somewhat  similar  plan  with  the  New 
Testament  lessons.  For  an  entire  generation  and,  in 
fact,  down  to  the  present,  this  plan,  with  slight  modi¬ 
fications,  has  dominated  much  of  our  Sunday-school 
thinking  and  work.  Side  by  side  with  this,  however, 
there  has  been  developing  rapidly,  especially  during 
the  last  twenty  years,  an  entirely  new  conception  of 
the  aims  and  methods  of  Sunday-school  work.  The 
center  of  attention  has  been  shifted  from  a  body  of 
material  to  be  taught  to  the  molding  and  training  of 
a  developing  religious  consciousness  in  the  life  of  the 
child.  This  new  conception  has  manifested  itself  in 
graded  lessons  adapted  to  the  growing  needs  of  the 
child  and  selected  from  a  broader  field  than  before; 
in  a  study  of  child  psychology  and  child  life  with  a 
view  to  applying  the  results  of  the  study  to  the  im¬ 
provement  of  Sunday-school  methods;  in  emphasis 
upon  teacher  training;  in  an  effort  to  make  the 
Sunday-school  a  genuine  laboratory  for  Christian 
living  rather  than  a  mere  place  for  giving  instruction; 
and  in  many  other  ways.  The  best  Sunday-schools 
of  today  are  so  unlike  those  of  a  generation  ago  that 
they  would  hardly  be  identified  as  the  same  institu¬ 
tions. 


126 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


SUCCESSES  AND  FAILURES  OF  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

Without  doubt  the  Sunday-school  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  unique  systems  of  religious 
training  which  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Other  sys¬ 
tems  may  have  surpassed  it  in  effectiveness,  but  pos¬ 
sibly  none  has  been  more  democratic  than  it,  and  none 
has  ever  enlisted  so  large  a  number  of  volunteer 
workers  for  such  extended  periods  of  service.  The 
devotion  of  this  army  of  Sunday-school  workers  has 
been  one  of  the  most  marvelous  demonstrations  of  the 
vitality  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the  hearts  and  lives 
of  its  devotees.  Their  consecration  has  made  of  the 
Sunday-school  a  power  possibly  second  to  none  in  the 
life  of  the  Church,  and  the  story  of  their  heroism  and 
devotion  forms  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
which  will  be  told  with  justifiable  pride  for  genera¬ 
tions  to  come. 

When,  however,  we  have  given  the  Sunday-school 
credit  for  all  that  it  has  accomplished  in  the  past,  we 
must,  in  justice  to  the  boys  and  girls  committed  to  our 
care,  face  squarely  its  shortcomings.  It  is  a  remark¬ 
ably  fine  thing  that  the  Sunday-school  has  been  able 
to  turn  a  steady  stream  of  new  recruits  toward  the 
Church,  but  it  is  a  depressing  fact  that  it  has  lost  per¬ 
manently  to  the  Church  many  more  young  people  than 
it  has  been  able  to  gather  into  its  membership.  It  is 
a  glorious  thing  that  the  Sunday-school  has  been  able 
to  do  so  much  in  the  past,  but  the  task  of  religious 
education  is  a  perennial  one.  Every  generation  must, 
in  this  particular,  stand  or  fall  by  itself.  The  stream 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  127 

of  youth  is  ceaseless  and  endless.  To  miss  one  rising 
group  is  to  break  the  spell  permanently.  The  char¬ 
acter  of  a  single  community,  or,  in  fact,  of  an  entire 
nation,  may  be  completely  altered  in  a  single  genera¬ 
tion  by  attention  to  or  neglect  of  religious  education. 
In  one  generation  the  entire  Protestant  Church  could 
be  made  to  disappear  from  America  by  the  simple  de¬ 
vice  of  turning  our  young  people  over  to  the  Catholic 
Church  or  some  similar  organization  for  their  reli¬ 
gious  training,  or  by  reversing  the  process  an  opposite 
result  might  be  brought  about.  In  view  of  these  con¬ 
siderations  we  must  face  the  bald  fact  that  whatever 
the  Sunday-school  may  have  done  in  the  past,  it  is  not 
at  present  reaching  the  boys  and  girls  who  ought  to 
be  reached  by  it.  The  army  of  youth  in  nominally 
Protestant  homes  in  the  United  States  which  is  receiv¬ 
ing  no  formal  religious  instruction  at  all  is  numbered 
literally  by  millions. 

MILLIONS  OF  GIRLS  AND  BOYS  UNREACHED 

These  young  people  are  to  be  found  everywhere — 
in  our  congested  city  centers;  in  sparsely  settled  rural 
regions  and  in  thickly  settled  rural  regions;  in  com¬ 
munities  where  the  houses  are  painted  and  in  those 
where  they  are  not  painted ;  on  the  great  plains  and  in 
the  recesses  of  the  mountains;  in  white  communities, 
in  Negro  communities,  in  Indian  communities,  in 
Spanish-speaking  communities,  and  many  others;  in 
the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  the  West.  In  these 
communities  we  have  girls  and  boys  who  never  have 
been  taught  to  pray;  who  never  have  handled  a  Bible; 


128  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

who  cannot  recite  the  Lord’s  Prayer;  who  never  have 
heard  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  or  heard  of  it;  who  do 
not  know  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ;  who  have  never 
attended  a  church  or  been  in  a  Sunday-school;  who 
have  had  no  instruction  concerning  the  Christian  vir¬ 
tues  and  no  training  in  the  exercise  of  them.  And 
these  children  are  not  in  South  America,  or  Africa, 
or  Asia,  or  the  islands  of  the  sea,  but  in  “Christian” 
America. 

The  Interchurch  Survey  which  was  based  upon  a 
very  careful  study  of  the  situation  placed  the  number 
of  Protestant  children  and  young  people  under  twenty- 
five  years  of  age  in  the  United  States  who  are  not 
enroled  in  Sunday-school  at  twenty-seven  millions. 
Taking  Catholic,  Jewish,  and  Protestant  figures  to¬ 
gether  we  discover  that  69.3  per  cent  of  all  our  boys 
and  girls  and  young  people  under  twenty-five  years  of 
age  in  the  United  States  are  not  so  much  as  enroled 
in  any  church  school  of  any  sort.  In  other  words,  two 
out  of  three  of  our  young  people  have  not  even  a  re¬ 
mote  relation  with  any  church  school  whatsoever. 
When,  however,  we  make  deductions  for  those  whose 
relationship  is  nominal  and  not  vital,  we  are  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that,  taking  the  country  as  a  whole, 
only  one  out  of  four  of  our  boys  and  girls  are  receiv¬ 
ing  any  regular  religious  instruction.  Local  surveys 
of  many  sorts  have  verified  the  substantial  accuracy 
of  these  general  results.  The  Cook  County  Sunday 
School  Association,  after  careful  investigation,  re¬ 
cently  announced  that  considerably  more  than  a  half 
a  million  of  the  boys  and  girls  of  Chicago  were  not 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  129 


enroled  in  any  organization  for  religious  instruction. 
The  New  York  Sunday  School  Association  reports  a 
similar  figure  for  New  York  City  and  numerous  rural 
surveys  show  the  most  distressing  conditions  in  this 
particular  in  the  various  areas  covered  by  them. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  Interchurch  Survey 
says :  “The  one  question  which  arises  most  clearly 
from  these  studies  is  this,  How  long  can  a  nation  en¬ 
dure,  69.3  per  cent  of  whose  children  and  youth  are 
receiving  no  systematic  instruction  in  the  religious  and 
moral  sanctions  upon  which  our  democratic  institu¬ 
tions  rest?”  It  then  adds:  “If  you  would  point  to 
the  weakest  spot  in  the  Protestant  Church  you  would 
put  your  finger  on  the  army  of  twenty-seven  million 
children  and  youth  who  are  growing  up  in  spiritual 
illiteracy  and  the  sixteen  million  other  American 
Protestant  children  whose  religious  instruction  is  lim¬ 
ited  to  a  brief  half  hour  once  a  week,  often  sandwiched 
in  between  a  delayed  preaching  service  and  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Sunday  dinner.  Let  it  be  burned  into  the  minds 
of  our  Church  leaders  that  a  Church  which  cannot 
save  its  own  children  can  never  save  the  world.  A 
religious  education  should  be  the  heritage  of  every 
child.  Spiritual  illiteracy  is  the  greatest  peril  of 
organized  society.” 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL  PROGRAM  INADEQUATE 

Distressing  as  is  the  fact  that  the  Sunday-school  is 
reaching  in  any  vital  way  only  a  small  proportion  of 
those  who  should  be  reached,  it  pictures  only  one 
aspect  of  the  situation.  We  are  still  concerned  about 


130 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


what  happens  to  those  who  do  share  in  what  the 
Sunday-school  has  to  offer.  And  here  we  are  forced 
to  confess  that  the  Sunday-school  has  largely  failed 
in  its  own  specialty.  For  decades  the  Sunday-school 
has  thought  of  its  task  primarily  in  terms  of  Bible 
teaching,  so  much  so  indeed  that  the  terms  “Sunday- 
school”  and  “Bible  School”  have  been  largely  inter¬ 
changeable.  In  spite  of  this  fact  an  overwhelming 
proportion  of  former  Sunday-school  pupils  are  not 
intelligently  informed  about  the  Bible  and  could 
by  no  means  pass  even  a  reasonably  simple  examina¬ 
tion  upon  it.  Many  of  them  know  a  limited 
number  of  Bible  stories  and  some  Bible  precepts  but 
have  no  intelligent  conception  of  the  Bible  story  as  a 
whole  or  of  the  nature  of  the  book  from  which  they 
have  been  studying  or  of  the  various  parts  of  it.  One 
illustration  may  suggest  what  we  mean.  Among  216 
Freshmen  taking  entrance  examinations  in  a  certain 
denominational  college  in  1922,  forty  per  cent  did  not 
know  whether  or  not  Joshua  was  a  book  of  the  Bible. 
A  detailed  study  made  by  W.  E.  Uphouse  of  Yale 
University  of  the  Uniform  Lessons  for  the  forty-six 
years  from  1872  to  1917  has  revealed  that  in  all  that 
time  only  one  third  of  the  Bible  was  ever  used  in  any 
way  in  connection  with  the  lessons.  The  study  in¬ 
cluded  every  verse  assigned  for  study,  for  reference, 
or  for  devotional  use  during  the  week.  In  those 
forty-six  years  nine  entire  books  of  the  Bible  were 
never  referred  to  in  any  way  in  the  Uniform  Lessons, 
and  taking  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  64.9  per  cent  of  the 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  131 


verses  were  never  used  in  any  way.  It  is  evident  that 
had  an  individual  studied  every  Uniform  Lesson  for 
forty-six  years  and  read  every  reference,  he  would  still 
be  entirely  ignorant  of  approximately  two  thirds  of 
the  Bible,  and  had  he  been  connected  with  the  Sunday- 
school  but  a  few  weeks  or  months  or  years,  as  multi¬ 
tudes  of  Sunday-school  pupils  are,  his  knowledge  of 
the  Bible  would  under  the  very  best  of  conditions  be 
proportionately  slight. 

Fortunately,  perhaps,  one  does  not  have  to  under¬ 
stand  the  Bible  thoroughly  in  order  to  be  a  Christian, 
but  the  Christian  who  does  not  understand  it  is  in  a 
peculiarly  helpless  situation,  and  some  of  the  most 
serious  problems  which  the  Church  faces  within  itself 
today  are  the  result  of  this  ignorance.  Even  our  mul¬ 
tiplication  of  religious  sects  finds  its  roots  in  this  same 
cause.  A  devout  individual  with  but  a  smattering  of 
Bible  knowledge  is  at  the  mercy  of  every  wind  of 
doctrine  which  chances  to  pass  over  his  head.  Rus- 
sellism,  Dowieism,  Mormonism,  Christian  Science,  and 
a  hundred  and  one  other  “isms”  are  all  founded  on 
the  Bible — an  unenlightened  interpretation  of  it,  we 
believe,  but  one  which  no  person  uninformed  concern¬ 
ing  the  Bible  can  refute.  There  is  no  religious  doc¬ 
trine  too  absurd  to  lack  its  proof  text  in  the  Bible 
when  that  book  falls  into  the  hands  of  some  pseudo¬ 
student  of  it.  Even  Bahaism  accepts  all  of  the  scrip¬ 
tures  of  both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Every 
year  thousands  of  earnest  Christians  are  drawn  off 
into  all  sorts  of  “isms.”  Some  of  them  drift  away 


132  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

from  the  Church  altogether  and  join  their  own  little 
group  of  hair-splitting  enthusiasts,  while  others  remain 
in  the  Church  and  Sunday-school,  there  to  propagate 
further  their  pet  ideas  and  doctrines.  Voliva  proves 
from  the  Bible  that  the  earth  is  flat  and  from  the  story 
of  creation  that  the  sun  can  by  no  possibility  be 
92,000,000  miles  away  from  the  earth.  He  says,  “I 
will  take  the  Word  of  God  and  down  any  modern 
astronomer  on  the  face  of  the  earth  and  dispose  of 
him  in  less  than  thirty  minutes.”  And  yet  Voliva  is 
but  a  slightly  accentuated  illustration  of  the  folly 
which  can  grow  out  of  an  unenlightened  interpretation 
of  the  Bible. 

The  fact  is  that  our  Sunday-schools  have  not  been 
able  to  keep  pace  with  the  progress  which  has  been 
made  in  religious  and  Biblical  knowledge  and  inter¬ 
pretation.  Once  men  believed  that  the  world  was  flat, 
but  now  we  can  afford  to  laugh  at  Voliva  for  we  have 
our  entire  public  school  system  which  is  thoroughly 
committed  to  the  generally  accepted  theory  that  the 
earth  is  round.  In  the  field  of  religion,  however,  we 
are  not  quite  so  fortunate.  There  has  been  progress 
in  religious  thinking  and  in  Biblical  interpretation  just 
as  there  has  been  progress  in  other  fields.  This  prog¬ 
ress  is  not  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  any  one  group 
or  of  any  one  denomination.  It  is  the  common  pos¬ 
session  of  the  best  trained  leadership  of  all  the  de¬ 
nominations.  Yet  we  have  failed  wofully  in  making 
our  Sunday-school  teaching  respond  to  the  progress 
made. 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  133 


UNTRAINED  TEACHERS  AT  TECHNICAL  TASKS 

The  reason  for  this  failure  is,  of  course,  not  far  to 
seek.  It  lies  to  a  considerable  extent  in  the  fact  that 
we  have  placed  upon  untrained  shoulders  a  burden  too 
heavy  for  them  to  bear.  It  is  as  if  we  had  said  in  our 
public  schools,  “Yes,  we  know  that  every  scientist  is 
agreed  now  that  the  earth  is  round,  but  since  it  is 
easier  to  get  teachers  to  teach  that  it  is  flat,  we  will 
just  let  them  go  on  that  way.”  It  is  not  surprising 
that  we  have  sent  our  young  people  from  our  Sunday- 
schools  up  to  our  Christian  colleges  there  to  watch 
them  “lose  their  religion.”  Without  insisting  that  the 
colleges  have  been  entirely  blameless  in  this  matter, 
it  is  perhaps  fair  to  say  that  in  at  least  nineteen  cases 
out  of  twenty  the  primary  blame  does  not  rest  upon 
students  or  the  college,  but  upon  an  unenlightened 
Sunday-school  teaching  which  has  founded  the  reli¬ 
gious  life  of  our  young  people  upon  sand  instead  of 
rock. 

We  have  tacitly  assumed  that  the  Bible  and  religion 
were  matters  easily  to  be  understood  and  taught.  Ap¬ 
parently  we  have  had  the  idea  that  when  Isaiah  spoke 
about  the  way  which  was  so  plain  that  “wayfaring 
men,  yea,  fools,  should  not  err  therein,”  he  was  talking 
about  the  Bible.  Unfortunately  for  the  idea,  he  was 
not.  The  Bible  contains  such  a  variety  of  literature 
written  by  so  many  different  individuals,  for  so  many 
different  purposes,  and  during  so  many  centuries  of 
human  history  that  one  may  not  casually  come  into  an 
understanding  of  it.  Only  years  of  specialized  study 


134  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

can  make  one  competent  to  teach  the  Bible.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  someone  has  been  forced  to  charac¬ 
terize  a  considerable  part  of  our  Biblical  teaching  as 
false  exegesis  of  misunderstood  metaphors,  or  that  the 
Committee  on  the  War  and  the  Religious  Outlook  in 
making  its  report  upon  the  condition  of  religion  among 
American  men  was  forced  to  say,  “The  average  young 
American  knows  very  little  about  God,  Christ,  prayer, 
faith.” 

Ultimately  every  school  system  stands  or  falls  upon 
the  quality  of  its  teaching  staff.  The  Sunday-school 
is  perhaps  unique  among  important  educational  sys¬ 
tems  in  that,  for  the  most  part,  it  has  had  no  profes¬ 
sional  standard  for  judging  the  fitness  of  its  teachers. 
Willingness  to  serve,  rather  than  fitness  for  the  task 
has  usually  been  the  chief  consideration.  Even  in  the 
poorest  of  our  public  schools  we  have  had  some  stand¬ 
ards,  and  we  have  subjected  prospective  teachers  to 
tests  to  ascertain  something  of  their  fitness  for  their 
work.  Not  so  in  the  Sunday-school.  This  fact  has 
placed  many  a  parent  in  a  most  embarrassing  situa¬ 
tion.  On  a  week  day  a  child  is  ill,  and  the  parent 
rushes  for  the  most  highly  skilled  physician  which  the 
entire  region  affords.  He  insists  on  a  man  who  has 
come  up  through  all  the  schools,  who  has  served  his 
period  as  an  intern,  and  who  has  then,  by  passing  spe¬ 
cial  examinations,  satisfied  the  state  authorities  that 
he  is  qualified  to  practise  his  chosen  profession.  On 
Sunday,  however,  the  same  parent  often  has  little 
choice  but  to  send  his  child  to  Sunday-school  to  be 
instructed  and  guided  in  his  religious  life  at  the  hands 


“AMERICANS” 

From  Mexico  and  the  continent  of  Europe  they  come  to  us  to 
be  built  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  our  national  life. 


POTENTIAL  CITIZENS  OF  OUR  UNITED  STATES 

To  guide  and  develop  the  finest  qualities  in  our  Eskimo  and 
American  Indian  girls  and  boys  and  to  make  of  them  leaders 

among  their  own  race  groups  is  an  important  part  of  the  home 
mission  task. 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  135 


of  a  teacher  who  has  had  no  training  for  his  task  and 
who  has  never  been  subjected  to  any  tests  as  to  his 
knowledge  of  the  history,  nature,  or  functions  of  re¬ 
ligion  or  as  to  his  skill  in  directing  the  religious  train¬ 
ing  of  a  developing  child.  Yet  the  science  of  religion 
is  fully  as  complicated  as  the  science  of  medicine,  and, 
to  put  it  mildly,  the  training  of  the  religious  nature 
of  a  child  is  altogether  as  complex  as  the  treatment 
of  a  case  of  tonsilitis  and,  by  all  the  canons  of  meas¬ 
urement,  far  more  important. 

THE  INDIANA  SURVEY 

Possibly  the  most  accurate  picture  of  the  average 
Sunday-school  teacher  is  given  us  by  the  recent  In¬ 
diana  Sunday-school  Survey.  This  survey  revealed 
the  fact  that  counting  50  per  cent  for  general  educa¬ 
tion,  35  per  cent  for  professional  training,  and  15 
per  cent  for  teaching  experience,  the  typical  Indiana 
Sunday-school  teacher  would  grade  39.9  per  cent,  and 
the  largest  single  group  would  grade  25  per  cent. 
Compared  with  the  rural  public  school  teachers  of  In¬ 
diana,  87.7  per  cent  of  all  the  Sunday-school  teachers, 
of  the  state  fall  below  the  lowest  standards  which  are 
accepted  for  rural  public-school  teachers  in  the  state.. 
The  survey  report  then  says,  “The  Indiana  Sunday- 
school  teacher  is  a  sincere,  devoted  Christian  of  mature 
years  who  has  entered  the  teaching  service  through 
the  highest  possible  motives.  The  Indiana  Sunday- 
school  teacher  is  untrained.  The  Indiana  Sunday- 
school  teacher  is  unsupervised.”  And  there  are  many 
reasons  for  believing  that  this  situation  in  Indiana  is 


136  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

more  or  less  typical  of  the  situation  in  the  entire 
country. 

EXPENDITURE  AND  BUILDINGS 

The  plain  fact  is  that  up  to  date  the  Church,  while 
it  has  used  the  Sunday-school  for  a  variety  of  pur¬ 
poses,  has  not  taken  it  seriously  as  an  educational  in¬ 
stitution.  It  has  failed  to  provide  trained  teachers, 
it  has  failed  to  furnish  a  building  adapted  to  educa¬ 
tional  purposes,  and  it  has  neglected  to  make  any  ade¬ 
quate  provision  for  the  work  in  its  budget.  A  recent 
study  in  a  typical  small  city  revealed  the  fact  that 
nineteen  churches  expended  annually  a  total  of 
$202,608  while  the  total  budget  of  Sunday-school 
expenditures  in  the  same  city  was  $7,215.23.  An 
analysis  of  the  expenditures  of  a  group  of  churches 
revealed  the  fact  that  seventy-one  cents  out  of  each 
dollar  were  expended  for  pastors’  salaries  and  general 
church  expense;  seventeen  cents  were  used  for  church 
benevolences  of  one  sort  or  another;  five  cents  were 
devoted  to  expenditures  for  music;  four  cents  to  re¬ 
munerate  the  janitor,  and  two  cents  for  Sunday-school 
upkeep.  In  other  words,  these  typical  churches  spent 
twice  as  much  for  janitor  service  and  two  and  one- 
half  times  as  much  to  supply  music  for  the  congrega¬ 
tion  as  they  spent  upon  the  work  of  religious  educa¬ 
tion  for  their  young  people.  A  comparison  of  expen¬ 
ditures  for  religious  education  and  public  education  is 
equally  illuminating.  In  one  city  it  was  discovered 
that  the  per  capita  expenditure  for  the  teaching  of 
mathematics  in  the  public  schools  was  thirteen  times 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  137 


greater  than  the  expenditure  for  religious  education 
in  the  same  community  and  that  twelve  times  as  much 
was  spent  upon  the  teaching  of  foreign  languages  as 
upon  the  training  of  children  in  religion.  The  cost  of 
other  subjects  was  much  in  the  same  ratio.  Possibly 
the  worst  feature  of  the  situation  is  that  we  have  be¬ 
come  so  accustomed  to  securing  religious  training  for 
our  boys  and  girls  without  money  and  without  price 
that  we  are  not  even  shocked  by  the  discrepancy. 

Nor  has  the  Sunday-school  fared  particularly  better 
in  the  matter  of  housing.  When  it  was  received  into 
the  church,  it  found  itself  in  a  building  constructed 
for  one  purpose  and  one  purpose  only,  the  holding  of 
common  worship.  Into  this  one  room  the  Sunday- 
school  was  forced  to  crowd  all  of  its  people  and  all 
of  its  activities.  Here,  in  seats  unsuited  to  educational 
purposes,  with  no  equipment  for  the  task,  and  amid 
the  interruptions  and  confusion  of  many  groups  at 
work  in  small  and  unfit  space,  the  work  of  religious 
training  was  carried  on  for  a  pitifully  few  minutes 
each  week.  The  need  for  some  sort  of  privacy  for 
the  work  of  the  class  group  was  soon  felt,  and,  little 
by  little,  curtains  and  then  sliding  partitions  began  to 
make  their  appearance.  At  length  these  flimsy  and 
temporary  protections  began,  in  some  cases,  to  take 
on  more  permanent  form,  and  buildings  with  class¬ 
rooms  which  can  be  used  seven  days  each  week  instead 
of  one,  and  equipped  with  desks,  tables,  chairs,  maps, 
charts,  books,  and  many  other  items  of  educational 
equipment  have  begun  to  make  their  appearance.  As 
yet,  however,  these  are  the  exceptional  instances. 


138 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


THE  “PEAK-LOAD-AT-A-SINGLE-HOUR” 

During  recent  years  Sunday-school  methods  have 
been  steadily  refined  and  improved.  Uniform  lessons 
are  disappearing  before  the  more  carefully  prepared 
graded  lessons;  trained  teachers  are  being  demanded 
and  secured;  paid  teachers  and  full-time  workers  are 
appearing  on  every  hand;  buildings  are  steadily  im¬ 
proving;  teachers  are  organizing  their  classes  into 
clubs  and  meeting  them  during  the  week;  and  many 
other  changes  looking  toward  the  increased  efficiency 
of  the  work  have  taken  place.  In  spite  of  these  en¬ 
couraging  facts,  the  conviction  has  been  steadily  and, 
recently,  very  rapidly  growing  that  no  refinement  of 
Sunday-school  methods  will  ever  provide  the  needed 
religious  training  for  our  youth.  Among  the  most 
obvious  difficulties  in  the  situation  is  what  Dr.  Henry 
F.  Cope  has  aptly  termed  the  “peak-load-at-a-single- 
hour”  difficulty.  In  other  words,  by  limiting  all  our 
religious  instruction  to  a  single  hour  once  a  week  we 
make  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  provide  adequate  facili¬ 
ties  or  a  sufficient  number  of  trained  teachers  to  care 
for  the  work.  Under  such  a  system  of  instruction  even 
a  trained  teacher  can  be  used  but  a  few  minutes  each 
week.  Further  than  that,  it  is  beyond  the  bounds  of 
possibility  that  any  adequate  plan  of  religious  instruc¬ 
tion  and  training  could  be  carried  out  by  single,  brief, 
weekly  periods  devoted  to  the  purpose.  The  brief 
period  devoted  to  religious  instruction  has  not  only 
made  it  impossible  for  us  to  do  our  task,  but  our  entire 
method  of  handling  the  matter  has  tended  to  convey 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  139 


the  impression  to  our  young  people  that  education  in 
religion  is  an  unimportant  or  even  an  optional  matter. 

Such  facts  as  the  foregoing  have  for  some  time  been 
challenging  the  Church  to  action,  and  various  attempts 
have  been  made  to  supplement  the  work  of  the 
Sunday-school.  These  have  taken  two  general  forms, 
that  of  extending  the  Sunday-school  session  itself  to 
two  or  three  periods,  and  that  of  providing  week-day 
religious  instruction  through  the  organization  of  spe¬ 
cial  groups  for  study,  the  providing  of  Daily  Vacation 
Bible  Schools  and  other  summer  schools  of  religion 
for  children,  and  the  establishment  of  regular  and 
systematic  week-day  religious  instruction  with  paid 
teachers  and  with  work  paralleling  that  of  the  public 
school.  In  this  connection  the  growth  of  the  plan  for 
giving  high  school  credit  for  Bible  study  should  be 
noted.  The  Indiana  Survey  showed  that  in  five  years 
6,933  Indiana  high  school  students  had  taken  Bible 
examinations  for  high  school  credit.  The  plan  also 
has  been  in  wide  use  in  other  states. 

EXTENDING  THE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  PERIOD 

It  would  not  be  feasible  here  to  give  even  a  sum¬ 
mary  of  the  plans  of  the  Sunday-schools  which  have 
undertaken  to  extend  their  sessions,  either  by  increas¬ 
ing  the  length  of  the  present  period  or  by  increasing 
the  number  of  periods  to  two  or  three.  By  way  of 
illustration,  however,  we  may  call  attention  to  the  plan 
which  is  in  operation  in  the  Lake  View  Avenue  Bap¬ 
tist  Church  of  Rochester,  New  York.  Here  the 
Sunday-school  session  is  extended  to  three  periods  : 


140  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

io :  30  to  11:15;  11  :i5  to  12;  12  to  12:  10  intermis¬ 
sion;  12  :  10  to  1 :  00. 

The  first  period  is  devoted  to  worship  and  training 
in  worship.  The  work  is  carried  on  as  a  regular  part 
of  the  morning  church  service,  the  pastor,  the  choir 
leader,  and  others  cooperating  at  every  point.  The 
children  come  with  and  sit  with  their  parents.  Every 
part  of  the  service  is  planned  with  them  in  mind. 
Scripture  selections  which  they  have  memorized  in  the 
Sunday-school  are  used  here  in  the  service  of  worship, 
and  hymns  which  they  have  committed  to  memory  are 
often  sung.  The  prayer  led  by  the  pastor  does  not 
forget  the  children,  and  the  pastor’s  talk  of  about 
seven  minutes  in  length  is  designed  for  their  benefit. 
Sometimes  there  is  definite  instruction  in  the  meaning 
and  method  of  worship,  the  use  of  the  hymn-book, 
the  attitude  of  prayer,  and  similar  topics.  Occasion¬ 
ally  Bible  stories  are  told  with  the  names  of  the  char¬ 
acters  omitted.  These  the  children  are  expected  to 
supply  from  their  home  study  during  the  previous 
week.  It  should  be  noted  that  this  plan  makes  avail¬ 
able  for  the  use  of  the  children  the  one  room  of  which 
every  detail  has  been  planned  to  create  an  atmosphere 
of  worship.  It  also  gives  them  a  real  part  in  the 
common  service  of  worship,  and  it  helps  very  much 
in  interesting  parents  in  the  work  of  the  church  school. 

At  11:15  a  recessional  is  sung,  usually  one  of  the 
pupils’  memory  hymns,  and  the  children  pass  to  their 
class  and  department  rooms.  This  forms  a  very  im¬ 
pressive  part  of  the  service.  The  following  period  is 
devoted  to  instruction.  There  is  then  a  brief  inter- 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  141 


mission  which  is  followed  by  the  third  period,  devoted 
to  expressional  and  service  activities.  Theoretically 
this  forms  a  well-rounded  program  of  worship,  reli¬ 
gious  instruction,  and  expression.  The  possibilities 
of  such  a  plan  are,  of  course,  far  greater  than  under 
the  limitations  of  the  usual  Sunday-school  session. 
Both  parents  and  pupils  are  impressed  with  the  im¬ 
portance  of  the  work. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  under  the  plan  the 
average  weekly  attendance  of  the  school  for  a  given 
month  has  increased  from  696  to  962,  and  the  attend¬ 
ance  of  children  at  the  morning  church  service  has 
grown  from  90  to  340  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  a  longer  session,  home  study,  punctual  attendance, 
note-book  work,  memory  work,  and  written  and  oral 
examinations  are  insisted  upon.  It  is  an  interesting 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  it  is  far  easier  to  secure  the 
cooperation  of  both  pupils  and  parents  in  a  program 
which  is  taken  seriously  and  offers  something  substan¬ 
tial,  even  though  it  may  make  large  demands,  than  it 
is  in  a  haphazard  program  which  demands  little. 

In  this  school,  public-school  terminology  has  been 
adopted  throughout — “grade”  instead  of  “year,” 
“Grammar  School”  instead  of  “Junior  Department,” 
“Junior  High  School”  instead  of  “Intermediate  De¬ 
partment,”  etc.  The  school  is  equipped  with  chairs 
to  fit  the  pupils,  tables,  blackboards,  pictures,  cup¬ 
boards,  coat  racks,  clocks  in  every  room,  and  similar 
items.  The  plan  calls  for  three  terms  of  thirteen 
weeks  each  and  for  a  summer  session.  Careful  rec¬ 
ords  are  kept,  and  report  cards  are  sent  to  parents 


142 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


regularly  for  their  signature.  These  reports  are  based 
upon  many  factors  rather  than  the  mere  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  Weekly  teachers’  meetings  are  held  for 
the  study  of  the  lesson. 

The  weakness  of  this  and  similar  plans  lies  in  the 
fact  that  there  is  always  a  temptation  to  rely  upon 
untrained  volunteer  workers.  This,  under  all  ordinary 
conditions  renders  it  impossible  to  make  the  work  most 
effective  and  to  place  it  upon  the  level  which  will  com¬ 
mand  the  highest  respect  of  all  concerned.  That  the 
plan  is  in  many  respects  far  superior  to  that  of  the 
average  Sunday-school  is  apparent,  and  its  possibilities 
are  very  large. 

RELIGIOUS  DAY  SCHOOLS 

Plans  for  extending  the  opportunities  for  the  reli¬ 
gious  education  of  our  youth  have  not  been  limited  to 
the  suggestion  of  a  more  intensive  use  of  an  already 
over-crowded  Sunday.  It  was  nearly  twenty-five 
years  ago  that  the  Rev.  Howard  R.  Vaughn  of  Ur- 
bana,  Illinois,  worked  out  the  plan  for  the  first  Re¬ 
ligious  Day  School,  held  in  1900.  In  his  account  of 
the  beginning  of  the  work  he  says : 

“The  object  of  the  movement  in  its  very  inception 
was  to  provide  a  week-day  school  of  religion  with  a 
teaching  force  equal  to  the  very  best  in  any  system  of 
education;  with  equipment  of  rooms  and  other  school 
appliances;  a  school  which  should  teach  the  Bible, 
home  and  foreign  missions,  church  history,  and  church 
music. 

“The  schools  have  been  held  in  all  sorts  of  com- 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  143 

munities,  from  the  farming  districts  to  the  largest 
cities,  and  they  are  as  well  adapted  to  the  one  as  to 
the  other.  Last  summer  we  held  a  school  of  six  pupils 
where  there  was  not  a  house  in  sight  of  the  school 
building  in  which  our  school  was  held.  In  that  school 
we  included  the  total  enrolment  of  the  public  school 
for  that  district.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  had 
schools  of  more  than  500  pupils  with  more  than 
twenty  teachers  in  one  school.” 

These  schools  have  had  a  carefully  and  fully  de¬ 
veloped  curriculum,  trained  teachers,  and  a  daily  ses¬ 
sion  of  sufficient  length  to  make  possible  serious  edu¬ 
cational  work. 

DAILY  VACATION  BIBLE  SCHOOLS 

Closely  associated  with  these  in  idea  have  been  the 
Daily  Vacation  Bible  Schools  which  have  developed 
largely  in  congested  sections  of  our  great  cities. 
These  schools  are  usually  held  for  from  four  to  six 
weeks  during  the  vacation  period.  Home  missionary 
agencies  have  been  particularly  active  in  promoting 
the  work  because  the  schools  provided  an  opportunity 
for  doing  constructive  work  among  the  children  of 
new  Americans.  During  the  summer  of  1922  thou¬ 
sands  of  girls  and  boys  representing  almost  every  race 
and  nationality  in  America  were  gathered  into  these 
Daily  Vacation  Bible  Schools  under  home  mission 
auspices.  In  general,  these  schools  are  held  from  nine 
o’clock  in  the  morning  until  noon,  the  program  con¬ 
sisting  of  a  devotional  period,  memory  work,  music 
period,  Bible  study,  expressional  work,  habit  talks,  and 


144  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

missionary  instruction.  Many  of  these  schools  are 
conducted  as  joint  enterprises  by  groups  of  churches. 
Others  are  fostered  by  individual  churches.  During 
the  summer  of  1922,  between  four  and  five  thousand 
such  schools  were  held,  many  of  them  directly  under 
home  mission  auspices  and  in  distinctly  home  mission 
communities. 

All  of  these  summer  plans  have  much  to  commend 
them.  They  utilize  a  period  of  time  previously  un¬ 
used  or  often  used  for  harmful  ends.  They  provide 
a  session  long  enough  to  accomplish  definite  educa¬ 
tional  results,  and  they  demand  trained  and,  usually, 
paid  teachers.  They  have  proved  particularly  effec¬ 
tive  in  reaching  children  of  foreign-born  parents. 

THE  WEEK-DAY  CHURCH  SCHOOL 

Good  as  is  the  vacation  school,  it  is,  of  course,  in¬ 
adequate  to  meet  the  need  of  religious  training  which 
must,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  be  carried  on 
throughout  the  entire  year.  To  meet  this  need  for 
steady  and  persistent  religious  education,  the  Week¬ 
day  Church  School”  has  come  into  existence,  and  in 
a  variety  of  forms  it  has  spread  widely.  This  is  not 
a  week-day  session  of  the  Sunday-school,  neither  is  it 
a  week-day  gathering  of  the  children  of  the  church  to 
be  addressed  by  the  pastor.  What  is  involved  in  this 
plan  is  clearly  stated  by  Dr.  Henry  F.  Cope  in  The 
Week-day  Church  School.  He  says : 

“ A  system  of  week-day  religious  instruction  in¬ 
volves  educational  mechanisms,  staff,  curriculum,  and 
supervision  as  definitely  organized,  as  expertly  chosen 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  145 


and  directed,  and  as  permanent  at  least  as  those  of 
the  public-school  system,  the  difference  lying  not  in 
quality  or  standards  of  work,  but  in  the  quantity  or 
extent.  It  does  not  involve  as  large  buildings  or  as 
many  professional  workers  or  as  great  expense  as  in 
public  education.  It  does  mean  equal  educational 
efficiencies  and  not  less  in  character,  definiteness,  or 
abilities.” 

Already  these  schools  are  to  be  found  in  all  our 
Northern  states  and  in  many  states  in  the  South  and 
West.  The  first  schools  appeared  about  fifteen  years 
ago.  Since  then  they  have  increased  largely  in  num¬ 
ber.  They  are  to  be  found  in  every  type  of  com¬ 
munity  from  the  small  town  to  the  great  city.  They 
employ  a  substantial  number  of  paid  workers,  and 
they  have  already  won  recognition  for  themselves  at 
the  hands  of  public-school  authorities.  Some  of  them 
are  conducted  by  individual  churches,  some  by  groups 
of  churches,  some  by  local  church  federations,  some 
by  community  boards  organized  for  the  purpose,  and 
some  by  home  mission  boards.  Some  schools  are  con¬ 
ducted  entirely  independent  of  public-school  authori¬ 
ties.  In  other  cases  the  public  schools  are  closed  for 
certain  periods  so  that  the  work  of  religious  instruc¬ 
tion  may  be  carried  on.  In  some  instances  pupils  are 
excused  upon  request  of  parents  from  certain  public 
school  periods  that  they  may  receive  religious  instruc¬ 
tion.  There  are  also  communities  where  the  present 
arrangement  of  the  school  schedule  enables  the  teacher 
of  religion  to  carry  on  his  work  during  the  same 
period  as  the  public  school  without  interfering  with  its 


146 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


work.  Where  the  cooperation  of  public  school  au¬ 
thorities  is  not  secured — in  fact,  in  some  cases  where 
it  is  secured — the  work  of  religious  instruction  is  car¬ 
ried  on  either  before  or  after  the  school  session  and 
on  Saturdays.  In  some  cases  these  week-day  church 
schools  are  conducted  in  the  public  school  building, 
sometimes  in  church  houses  or  church  buildings.  A 
few  have  buildings  of  their  own  erected  for  their  spe¬ 
cial  use. 

The  experience  of  these  schools  has  taught  a  mul¬ 
titude  of  lessons  at  which  we  have  not  space  so  much 
as  to  hint,  but  possibly  a  brief  account  of  the  work 
in  one  distinctly  home  mission  community  may  help 
us  to  understand  its  method  and  purpose. 

EXPERIENCE  AT  GARY,  INDIANA 

Gary,  Indiana,  just  east  of  Chicago,  is  a  relatively 
new  community  of  about  50,000  population.  Its  chief 
industry  is  steel  manufacturing.  Its  adult  population 
is  overwhelmingly  of  European  birth.  The  only  im¬ 
portant  exception  is  a  substantial  group  of  southern- 
born  Negroes.  In  many  respects  a  more  unpromising 
field  for  an  experiment  in  week-day  religious  instruc¬ 
tion  would  be  hard  to  find.  In  other  respects  Gary 
possesses  some  decided  advantages  for  the  working 
out  of  such  a  plan.  Chief  among  the  advantages  may 
be  noted  the  type  of  public  school  system  which  has 
been  developed  here.  Its  chief  characteristics  are  (a) 
an  attempt  to  develop  the  child  on  all  sides  of  his 
nature;  (b)  a  lengthened  school  day — seven  hours 
instead  of  the  usual  five;  and  (c)  an  arrangement 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  147 


whereby  all  school  rooms  and  school  equipment  can 
be  used  by  different  groups  of  pupils  throughout  the 
day — while  one  group  is  in  the  classrooms,  the  other 
group  is  busy  in  the  shops,  in  the  gymnasium,  or  on 
the  playground. 

It  is  important  to  note  this  special  plan  of  school 
organization  for  it  has  made  possible  a  dovetailing  of 
religious  education  with  the  work  of  the  public  school, 
which  is  most  suggestive  in  its  possibilities.  The  work 
began  in  1914,  growing  out  of  a  strong  conviction  of 
the  desperate  need  for  it.  In  the  beginning  arrange¬ 
ments  were  made  whereby  upon  written  request  of 
parents,  pupils  were  excused  from  any  non-recitation 
period  in  the  public  schools  in  order  to  receive  religious 
instruction.  In  later  practise  this  privilege  has  been 
largely  confined  to  the  play  periods.  At  first  the  work 
was  carried  on  by  the  various  churches  independently, 
but  now  a  local  board  has  been  organized  and  is  re¬ 
sponsible  for  it.  Several  denominations  cooperate  in 
carrying  on  the  work.  The  board  endeavors  to  in¬ 
clude  in  the  faculty  only  teachers  of  college  or  normal 
school  training  who  have,  in  addition,  had  special 
training  in  religious  study,  who  are  experienced  in 
public  school  teaching,  and  who  have  both  Christian 
character  and  attractive  personality.  A  recent  report 
showed  ten  teachers  employed,  of  whom  six  were  on 
full  time.  A  superintendent  of  the  work  is  also  em¬ 
ployed.  The  plan  calls  for  one  school  for  each  public 
school.  During  1917  three  schools  were  maintained. 
The  highest  enrolment  that  year  was  800.  By  No¬ 
vember,  1920,  eight  schools  were  in  existence,  with 


148  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

an  enrolment  of  3,308.  It  should  be  noted  that  this 
number  of  pupils  was  taught  by  ten  teachers  who,  by 
a  carefully  worked  out  schedule,  were  busy  with  class 
groups  from  8:  15  a.m.  until  the  close  of  the  school 
day. 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  this  has  been 
from  the  first  distinctly  a  home  missionary  proposi¬ 
tion  in  that  it  has  been  promoted  and  fostered  by  gen¬ 
eral  church  boards.  The  percentage  of  local  support 
has,  however,  been  steadily  increasing.  The  budget 
for  1920-21  called  for  an  expenditure  of  $16,500.  Of 
this  it  was  expected  that  $10,000  would  be  raised 
locally  and  the  balance  provided  by  church  boards. 
This  support  on  the  part  of  general  agencies  is  sig¬ 
nificant  in  that  Gary  is  typical  of  many  communities 
which  for  special  reasons  will  not  be  able  to  provide, 
particularly  at  the  inception  of  any  plan,  the  neces¬ 
sary  funds  for  carrying  on  any  adequate  system  of 
religious  training  for  their  youth.  In  no  possible  way 
can  this  be  provided  except  as  general  agencies  are 
entrusted  with  funds  which  will  enable  them  to  branch 
out  more  extensively  into  this  most  promising  field  of 
activity. 

And  the  results  of  the  work  up  to  date  have  been 
definite  and  most  gratifying  along  such  lines  as  in¬ 
creased  intelligence  in  regard  to  religion,  better  be¬ 
havior  of  pupils  in  the  public  schools,  greatly  increased 
honesty,  and  higher  standards  of  conduct  in  many 
other  particulars.  These  testimonies  have  come  from 
the  most  varied  and  unprejudiced  sources.  One  pub¬ 
lic  school  teacher  says,  “There  has  been  a  decided 


t 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  149 

decrease  in  lying,  stealing,  and  quarreling  among  the 
pupils  who  attend  the  Week-day  Religious  School.” 
A  principal  of  one  school  marks  such  a  difference  in 
the  conduct  of  the  pupils  that  “now  it  is  perfectly  safe 
to  hang  wraps  in  the  hall,  and  there  is  practically  no 
stealing.”  Children  of  foreign-speaking  parents  are 
asking  for  and  buying  Bibles  and  hymn-books,  and 
they  are  telling  the  Bible  stories  to  their  parents. 
Children  are  learning  to  pray,  to  forgive,  and  to  play 
square.  One  little  girl  after  a  lesson  on  forgiveness 
came  to  her  teacher  and  said,  “Mary  hit  me  yesterday 
and  I  did  not  hit  her  back.  I  did  not,  I  forgave  her.” 
A  Catholic  mother  came  to  the  school  and  stayed 
through  an  entire  class  hour.  At  the  close  she  said, 
“I  wanted  to  see  what  you  are  doing  in  this  school, 
for  it  has  made  such  a  change  in  my  little  girl.  She 
used  to  have  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  quar¬ 
relsome  child  in  the  neighborhood,  but  since  she  has 
been  coming  here,  she  is  a  different  child.  She  is 
always  quoting  what  the  teacher  says  about  being 
kind  and  playing  fair  and  not  quarreling.  If  it  can 
do  so  much  for  her,  I  want  her  to  come  as  long  as 
there  is  a  school.”  One  little  girl  after  a  lesson  on 
God  as  the  giver  of  food  and  drink  came  to  the  teacher 
and  said,  “I  never  take  a  drink  of  water  now  without 
thanking  God  for  his  gift.”  Thus  there  are  many 
evidences  that  the  schools  are,  not  only  instructing  the 
pupils,  but  enabling  them  to  interpret  their  own  social 
relationships  in  religious  terms. 

The  foregoing  is  an  illustration  of  the  type  of  thing 
which  is  being  attempted  now  in  many  communities 


150 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


in  many  different  states.  It  also  suggests  the  sort  of 
program  upon  which  the  Church  is  almost  unwittingly 
embarking.  It  means  buildings  for  the  purpose, 
trained  and  salaried  workers,  and  standardized  edu¬ 
cational  equipment.  Nothing  short  of  this  will  do  the 
job.  There  is  great  danger  that  we  shall  forget  these 
facts  and  undertake  to  do  the  work  on  the  spare  time 
of  pastors  and  Sunday-school  teachers.  Nothing  will 
bring  the  work  into  disrepute  with  parents  and  pupils 
more  quickly  than  that. 

THE  TASK  OVERWHELMINGLY  HOME  MISSIONARY 

IN  CHARACTER 

It  is  also  evident  that  in  some  of  its  most  impor¬ 
tant  aspects,  the  task  is  distinctly  a  missionary  task. 
This  is  particularly  true  in  the  polyglot  sections  of  our 
great  cities  and  in  many  other  neglected  spots,  includ¬ 
ing  our  sparsely  settled  frontier  areas.  No  religious 
agencies  stand  so  close  to  the  boys  and  girls  who  are 
in  need  as  do  the  distinctly  home  mission  agencies, 
and  unless  they  provide  suitable  religious  training,  it 
will  not  be  provided.  There  is  no  feasible  way  to 
reach  effectively  our  “New  American”  and  other 
neglected  groups  except  through  the  rising  generation, 
and,  up  to  date,  no  method  has  been  devised  which  is  so 
well  suited  to  the  purpose  as  the  week-day  church 
school  under  trained  leadership.  Home  mission 
agencies  are  already  finding  in  this  plan  a  most  effec¬ 
tive  method  for  building  out  of  the  America  that  is, 
the  America  that  ought  to  be.  “It  is  clear,”  says  Dr. 
Walter  S.  Athearn,  “that  the  price  which  we  must  pay 


CHRISTIAN  NURTURE  IN  CHURCH  SCHOOL  151 


for  our  religious  liberty  is  whatever  price  it  may  cost 
to  build  a  system  of  religious  schools  which  will 
parallel  the  public  schools  and  be  equally  efficient. 
The  building  of  such  a  system  of  religious  schools  is 
one  of  the  most  important  tasks  of  the  Church.” 

The  price  is  a  large  one,  but  one  within  the  resources 
of  the  Church.  Will  the  Church  pay  the  price?  ' 
Rarely  has  it  faced  a  question  so  important.  The 
future  of  Christianity  in  the  United  States,  and,  to  a 
considerable  extent,  throughout  the  world,  will  be 
affected  to  a  very  marked  extent  by  the  sort  of  answer 
which  is  given. 

And  through  what  channels  is  this  answer  to  be 
given?  So  far  as  we  can  see,  they  are  two — the  so- 
called  self-supporting  churches  usually  in  American 
communities  and  the  home  mission  churches  through 
which  the  followers  of  Jesus  Christ  reach  out  in 
service  beyond  the  limits  of  their  respective  communi¬ 
ties.  To  illustrate,  62  per  cent  of  the  people  of  New 
York  State  or  6,503,761  persons  are  immigrants  or 
the  children  of  immigrants.  In  some  other  states  the 
proportion  is  still  higher.  An  overwhelming  per¬ 
centage  of  these  people  are  distinctly  a  home  mission 
responsibility.  A  single  home  mission  church  in  one 
community  can  and  does  gather  within  its  walls  on 
a  Sunday  afternoon  1,200  children  from  these  foreign¬ 
speaking  homes.  At  the  same  hour  there  are  at  least 
a  million  similar  children  in  the  state  who  are  entirely 
neglected  so  far  as  their  religious  training  is  concerned. 
The  young  people  can  be  reached.  Home  mission 
agencies  which  have  already  become  the  greatest 


152 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


boards  of  religious  education  which  America  has  ever 
produced  are  embarrassed  and  overwhelmed  by  oppor¬ 
tunities  to  which  they  cannot  respond  for  lack  of  re¬ 
sources  and  workers.  If  this  situation  is  to  be 
remedied,  treasuries  must  be  replenished  and  workers 
recruited.  Within  a  few  years  scores  of  our  most  bril¬ 
liant  college  and  university  trained  young  people  have 
given  themselves  to  this  work.  The  number  of  such 
workers  needs  to  be  increased  by  hundreds.  Old  and 
inadequate  buildings  must  be  replaced  by  new  struc¬ 
tures  adapted  to  purposes  of  religious  education  and 
the  training  of  youths.  The  staffs  of  many  home  mis¬ 
sion  stations  must  be  increased  from  one  untrained  or 
partially  trained  individual  to  six,  ten,  twelve,  or 
twenty  persons  thoroughly  trained  for  their  work.  To 
speak  conservatively,  at  least  fifty  per  cent  of  the  mil¬ 
lions  of  young  people  growing  up  in  America  with¬ 
out  religious  training  are  a  home  mission  responsi¬ 
bility,  and  that  responsibility  is  preeminently  and  pri¬ 
marily  one  of  religious  education. 

Through  thousands  of  Sunday-schools,  Daily  Vaca¬ 
tion  Bible  Schools,  Week  Day  Schools  of  Religion, 
and  clubs  of  many  sorts,  home  mission  agencies  are 
seeking  to  discharge  this  responsibility.  They  but 
wait  the  word  of  the  churches  to  move  forward  to 
far  greater  achievements  in  the  future. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Child  and  America’s  Future 

Thus  far  in  this  discussion  we  have  laid  great 
emphasis  upon  the  fact  that  the  hope  of  America  lies 
with  her  girls  and  boys.  We  have  also  pointed  out 
some  of  the  major  divisions  of  our  task  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  their  training.  We  have,  however,  said 
little  or  nothing  about  the  particular  sort  of  America 
which  we  hope  to  see  emerge  as  the  result  of  our 
efforts  with  the  rising  generation.  This  is  a  matter 
of  great  importance  for  we  cannot  achieve  any  very 
satisfactory  ends  if  we  have  no  definite  goals  at  which 
to  aim.  It  matters  little  that  we  can  go  from  New 
York  to  San  Francisco  in  a  few  hours  by  aeroplane 
if  we  have  no  worthy  purpose  for  going.  It  is  of 
little  avail  that  we  can  talk  thousands  of  miles  with¬ 
out  wires,  if  we  have  nothing  worth  saying.  It  is  of 
slight  moment  that  mechanical  contrivances  have  made 
the  world  a  neighborhood,  if  we  fail  to  learn  the  real 
lesson  of  neighborliness.  And  it  is  of  no  consequence 
that  we  build  up  extensive  machinery  for  dealing  with 
boys  and  girls  in  America,  unless  we  have  some  con¬ 
ception  of  the  sort  of  America  which  we  hope  to  build 
through  the  rising  generation.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  nineteenth  century  was  characterized  by  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  “child  saving”  movements.  The  orphan, 
the  blind,  the  deaf,  the  crippled,  the  feeble-minded, 
the  delinquent  child  was  the  center  of  attention.  The 

twentieth  century  bids  fair  to  stress  the  even  more 

153 


154 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


constructive  task  of  establishing  suitable  goals  for  the 
strong  and  the  well  and  the  alert  and  the  capable  child. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  A  GOAL 

Our  whole  task  with  girls  and  boys,  whether  it  be 
in  the  home,  the  schoolroom,  the  church,  on  the  play¬ 
ground,  or  in  the  workshop,  may  be  summed  up  in 
one  word — education.  But  the  very  idea  of  education 
suggests  that  the  educator  has  some  ideals  which  he 
would  like  to  see  realized,  both  in  the  life  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual  and  in  the  society  of  which  he  forms  a  part. 
He  is  far  more  than  a  mere  observer  watching  the 
child  develop  into  something  or  other  he  knows  not 
what.  Instead,  he  is  in  a  very  real  sense  a  guide.  He 
is  supposed  to  know  something  of  the  path  over 
which  he  is  traveling  and  to  have  certain  goals  toward 
which  he  is  aiming.  As  Christians,  our  distinctly 
Christian  goals  transcend  all  others.  We  are  seeking 
far  more  than  merely  to  draw  out  all  of  the  possi¬ 
bilities  of  the  child’s  life,  for  he  has  immense  possi¬ 
bilities  for  evil  as  well  as  good,  and  the  mere  random 
expression  of  multiplied  impulses  may  lead  to  the 
second-best  things  of  life  as  easily  as  to  the  best.  We 
cannot  be  satisfied  to  have  our  young  people  grow  up 
as  Mohammedans,  or  Buddhists,  or  pagans.  We  are 
deliberately  seeking  to  check  certain  impulses  and  to 
encourage  the  expression  of  others  in  order  that  we 
may  see  realized  in  the  lives  of  individuals  and  in  the 
life  of  the  nation  those  things  which  in  our  best  mo¬ 
ments  we  call  Christian.  Consciously  or  unconsciously 
we  have  a  goal  toward  which  we  are  working,  and 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


155 


so  far  as  it  relates  to  America  it  may  be  interpreted 
in  terms  of  our  conception  of  the  meaning  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  As  to  detailed  interpre¬ 
tation  of  what  that  means  we  may  not  be  entirely 
agreed,  but,  so  far  as  its  broad  outlines  are  concerned, 
there  is  less  difference  of  opinion  among  Christians 
than  we  are  sometimes  led  to  believe.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  picture  in  all  its  multiplicity  of  detail 
the  kind  of  America  which  we  hope  to  have  when  we 
have  succeeded  through  our  efforts  with  the  rising 
generation  in  molding  it  more  nearly  into  the  likeness 
of  what,  as  Christians,  we  think  it  ought  to  be.  We 
can,  however,  suggest  some  definite  aspects  of  the  new 
America  for  which  we  hope. 

A  HEALTHIER  AMERICA 

Possibly  we  can  begin  at  no  safer  point  than  by 
saying  that  we  definitely  hope  for  a  healthier  America 
in  the  future  than  we  have  had  in  the  past.  From 
that  never-to-be-forgotten  winter  when  the  little  band 
of  Pilgrims  on  the  New  England  shore  laid  under  the 
sod  so  many  of  America’s  first  white  settlers,  down 
to  the  present  moment,  the  toll  of  unnecessary  deaths, 
disease,  and  personal  suffering  which  we  have  paid  as 
a  nation  has  been  beyond  comprehension.  Helpless 
babies,  happy  girls  and  boys,  fond  fathers  and  mothers 
— they  have  been  sacrificed  in  a  steady  stream  by  mil¬ 
lions  upon  the  altars  of  ignorance  and  neglect.  Many 
a  home  is  being  robbed  of  its  children,  and  many  chil¬ 
dren  are  robbed  of  their  parents  at  the  time  when  those 
parents  are  most  needed,  by  the  diseases  which  might 


156 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


be  prevented  if  we  would  undertake  seriously  the  mat¬ 
ter  of  preventing  them.  Added  to  this  is  the  appalling 
and  continuous  economic  and  physical  wastage  of  ill- 
health.  While  you  read  these  words  there  is  in  the 
United  States  on  beds  of  sickness  from  entirely  pre¬ 
ventable  causes  an  army  of  men  and  women  and  boys 
and  girls  so  vast  as  to  stagger  the  imagination.  These 
people  are,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  deprived  of 
schools  or  participation  in  productive  employment  and 
of  a  part  in  the  joys  of  life.  And,  while  they  are 
recovering,  their  places  will  be  taken  by  others  who 
perhaps  are  today  strong  and  well,  but  who  will  fall 
the  victims  of  their  own  ignorance  or  of  the  ignorance 
and  carelessness  of  others  with  whom  they  will  be 
forced  to  associate.  A  recent  health  survey  of  our 
important  states  containing  almost  exactly  one  fiftieth 
of  the  population  of  the  United  States,  showed  that, 
on  the  average,  500,000  persons  or  nearly  one  fourth 
of  the  entire  population  are  sick  all  the  time. 

Our  task  here  is  a  clear  one,  but  it  can  be  performed 
only  through  the  children.  We  must  rear  a  genera¬ 
tion  of  girls  and  boys  who  are  themselves  strong  and 
healthy,  and  we  must  give  them  both  the  ideals  of 
health  and  the  instruction  concerning  its  care  which 
will  protect  them  against  disease.  We  already  have 
the  knowledge  and  the  machinery  for  doing  the  task 
through  our  homes,  our  schools,  and  our  churches. 
It  remains  for  us  to  determine  that  the  job  shall  be 
done  in  a  thoroughgoing  way,  not  when  an  individual 
becomes  twenty-one  years  of  age  or  after  he  has  begun 
to  show  symptoms  of  disease,  but  while  he  is  at  his 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


157 


mother’s  knee,  and  along  through  the  years  of  gram¬ 
mar  school,  high  school,  and  college.  Nor  can  the  job 
be  done  for  any  group  alone.  It  must  be  done  for 
all.  The  avenue  can  never  be  safe  so  long  as  the  alley 
is  unclean.  The  most  neglected  street  lad  in  the 
schoolroom  or  public  conveyance  will  carry  infection 
to  the  child  from  the  clean  home  as  quickly  as  to  any 
other.  No  child  can  be  safe  so  long  as  the  health 
ideals  and  habits  of  another  child  in  the  community 
are  on  a  lower  level  than  his.  It  is  our  task  and  privi¬ 
lege  to  raise  the  common  level  of  public  health  by 
making  available  for  all  the  best  knowledge  concern¬ 
ing  health  in  all  its  aspects  that  we  possess  and  the 
best  training  in  the  care  of  health.  And  the  one  way 
that  we  can  be  sure  of  reaching  all  the  people  is  to 
deal  with  each  rising  generation  as  it  comes  along. 
Jesus  came  that  his  followers  might  have  life  and  have 
it  more  abundantly,  and  it  is  ours  to  help  in  bringing 
his  purpose  to  realization  here  and  now  by  undertak¬ 
ing  seriously  the  task  of  laying  sure  health  founda¬ 
tions  for  our  nation  through  its  children. 

A  MORE  INTELLIGENT  AMERICA 

Then,  too,  the  America  that  is  to  be  must  be  a  more 
intelligent  America.  It  must  be  better  educated,  not 
in  order  that  our  girls  and  boys  may  earn  more  money 
in  fewer  hours  or  acquire  within  a  period  of  years  a 
larger  pile  of  material  possessions,  but  rather  that 
they  may  be  fitted  for  the  duties  of  a  democracy  and 
that  their  personalities  may  be  enriched  and  their  in¬ 
terests  and  joys  multiplied  as  they  are  introduced  to 


158 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


the  spiritual  values  of  the  world  in  which  they  live. 
We  cannot  make  of  our  nation  what  it  ought  to  be 
while  multitudes  cannot  read  or  write  and  while  many 
others  have  never  progressed  far  enough  in  these  arts 
to  make  them  of  use  to  them  in  interpreting  the  cur¬ 
rent  thought  of  the  day, — without  a  knowledge  of 
which,  citizenship  in  a  democracy  loses  all  of  its  finest 
significance. 

Again,  we  know  how  to  proceed  to  accomplish  the 
end  which  we  seek.  It  is  largely  a  task  of  making 
accessible  to  all  the  opportunities  which  many  already 
have.  It  involves  reaching  out  to  communities  which 
are  deficient  either  in  ideals  or  resources  and,  with 
gentle  insistence,  laying  upon  them  the  responsibility 
of  the  task  and  then  coming  to  their  assistance  with 
such  help  as  may  be  needed  from  time  to  time.  It 
involves  in  all  our  communities  the  taking  of  the  task 
of  education  seriously,  the  insistence  upon  school 
facilities  and  adequately  trained  teachers,  and  the  will¬ 
ingness  to  pay  the  salaries  requisite  for  securing  the 
best. 

The  notion  that  this  task  of  education  is  beyond 
our  financial  or  human  resources  is  an  untenable  one. 
We  talk  much  concerning  the  cost  of  education,  and 
in  total  the  cost  is  large,  yet  when  compared  to  other 
expenditures  it  seems  slight.  We  forget  sometimes 
how  large  a  nation  we  are  and  that  our  resources  are 
commensurate  with  our  size.  During  a  recent  year 
we  spent  in  the  United  States  for  public  education, 
elementary  and  secondary,  for  normal  schools,  for 
higher  education  in  colleges,  universities,  and  profes- 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


159 


sional  and  technical  schools,  both  public  and  private, 
a  grand  total  of  nearly  $920,000,000.  This  includes 
expenditures  for  buildings  and  equipment,  repairs, 
heating,  lighting,  and  other  incidentals,  as  well  as  ex¬ 
penditures  for  teachers’  salaries.  The  sum  total  is  a 
large  one.  It  is  little  wonder  that  we  are  told  that 
education  is  very  expensive. 

We  are  only  in  a  position  to  see  it  in  its  true 
light,  however,  when  we  begin  to  make  some  com¬ 
parisons.  Government  records  show  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States  spent  more  for  luxuries  during 
the  one  year  1920  than  they  have  spent  for  education 
of  every  sort  during  the  entire  history  of  the  country. 
Not  only  that,  but  the  amount  spent  for  luxuries  in 
that  one  year  would,  after  footing  all  of  our  educa¬ 
tional  bills  of  every  sort  since  the  founding  of  our 
government,  still  leave  six  billion  dollars  to  apply  on 
our  public  debt — sufficient  to  reduce  our  enormous 
debt  one  fourth  in  a  single  year.  We  spend  nearly 
twice  as  much  each  year  upon  face  powder,  cosmetics, 
and  perfume  as  we  pay  for  the  salaries  of  all  our 
teachers  in  all  our  elementary  and  high  schools 
throughout  the  country.  The  amount  which  we  spend 
for  jewelry  annually  represents  a  total  larger  than  all 
the  endowments  of  all  our  colleges  and  universities 
in  the  United  States.  We  spend  as  much  for  ciga¬ 
rettes  alone  as  we  spend  for  all  our  elementary  and 
secondary  education  in  the  United  States,  both  public 
and  private,  including  capital  investments  in  new 
buildings  and  equipment,  and  the  cost  of  heating  and 
lighting  and  all  other  upkeep.  We  spend  five  times 


160 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


as  much  for  tobacco  each  year  as  we  spend  for  the 
salaries  of  all  our  teachers  in  the  country,  or  more 
than  we  have  spent  for  higher  education  since  the 
founding  of  Harvard  College  nearly  three  centuries 
ago. 

We  need  to  recall  some  of  these  facts  when  we  are 
told  by  the  same  government  reports  (the  report  of 
the  Commissioner  of  Education,  dated  September  i, 
1920)  that  a  recent  study  had  revealed  18,000  schools 
closed  for  lack  of  teachers  and  at  least  42,000  schools 
taught  by  entirely  sub-standard  teachers,  and  when  we 
are  told  that  we  must  spend  at  least  two  or  three  times 
as  much  upon  education  if  we  are  to  do  the  task  which 
needs  to  be  done.  The  same  report  indicates  that  a 
third  of  a  million  boys  and  girls  are  literally  being 
deprived  of  schools  for  lack  of  teachers,  and  that 
more  than  half  of  the  teachers  employed  are  not  pre¬ 
pared  for  their  tasks  according  to  any  reasonable 
standard. 

Surely  we  must  do  better  by  the  rising  generation 
in  the  way  of  education  than  we  are  at  present  doing 
if  American  democracy  is  to  be  made  safe  and  beau¬ 
tiful  and  if  the  girls  and  boys  of  America  are  to  have 
a  chance  to  live  the  full,  free,  and  enlightened  life 
which  should  be  theirs. 

BETTER  RELIGIOUS  TRAINING  FOR  AMERICAN  YOUTH 

Again  we  must  have  an  America  in  which  every 
child  shall  have  the  privilege  of  an  intelligent  and 
thorough  religious  training.  Religious  education  must 
come  to  fill  a  much  larger  place  in  our  national  life 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


161 


than  it  has  in  the  past.  The  need  is  imperative.  We 
know  the  general  nature  of  the  task  to  be  done,  but 
much  of  the  machinery  necessary  for  its  accomplish¬ 
ment  has  still  to  be  created.  The  job  is  going  to  re¬ 
quire  careful  planning  and  much  consecrated  effort, 
but  it  can  be  mastered.  It  must  be  so,  for  without  the 
undergirding  of  religious  ideals  and  definite  religious 
training,  the  goal  set  us  by  Jesus  cannot  be  realized, 
and  our  social  order  stands  in  constant  danger  of  col¬ 
lapse.  The  Church  alone  can  never  do  the  task;  but 
the  Church  and  the  home  working  hand  in  hand  can. 
Particularly  does  America  need  that  spiritual  interpre¬ 
tation  of  life  which  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  alone 
can  give,  and  the  only  chance  to  infuse  spiritual  ideals 
into  our  social  order  is  through  our  girls  and  boys. 
America  cannot  go  on  indefinitely  in  her  mad  scramble 
for  material  possessions.  She  must,  if  she  is  to  sur¬ 
vive,  anchor  her  life  deeply  in  the  great  spiritual 
realities  of  religion,  for,  as  in  the  days  of  old,  the 
things  which  are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the  things 
which  are  not  seen  are  eternal. 

BETTER  PROVISIONS  FOR  USING  LEISURE  TIME 

The  America  toward  which  we  are  working  is  also 
an  America  where  the  opportunities  for  wholesome 
recreation  will  be  far  more  abundant  than  they  are 
today.  It  will  be  an  America  from  which  lurid  novels, 
unclean  magazines,  degrading  motion  pictures,  inde¬ 
cent  dancing,  immoral  plays,  and  other  unwholesome 
recreations  will  be  crowded  out  by  the  expulsive  power 
of  that  which  is  clean  and  wholesome.  With  the  de- 


162 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA'S  FUTURE 


veloping  use  of  automatic  machinery  the  amount  of 
leisure  time  is  steadily  increasing,  and  with  it  the  im¬ 
portance  of  providing  wholesome  recreation  is  con¬ 
stantly  becoming  greater.  Whatever  we  may  have 
done  in  the  past,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  the 
days  ahead  we  must  devote  much  energy  to  the  task 
of  training  boys  and  girls  in  the  art  of  using  their 
leisure  time  in  wholesome  and  worth-while  ways.  It 
will  be  most  unfortunate  if  we  contentedly  turn  over 
the  leisure  time  of  our  girls  and  boys  exclusively  to 
agencies  for  commercialized  amusements.  America 
can  never  be  safe  on  such  a  basis. 

NEED  FOR  A  SENSE  OF  STEWARDSHIP 

The  America  that  is  to  be  must  be  one  in  which  the 
principles  of  Christian  stewardship  are  recognized  and 
applied  to  the  details  of  daily  living.  The-  Christian 
Church  has  perhaps  no  more  characteristic  and  no 
more  important  message  for  the  times  than  the  mes¬ 
sage  of  stewardship,  a  thoroughgoing  stewardship 
which  deals,  not  alone  with  the  handling  of  posses¬ 
sions,  but  which  rigidly  applies  the  exacting  ethics  of 
Jesus  to  the  very  method  of  their  acquisition.  No 
method  of  administering  wealth  can  atone  for  an  un¬ 
social  method  of  acquiring  it.  Some  years  ago  Josiah 
Strong,  speaking  of  what  he  described  as  America’s 
“new  peril  of  wealth”  said:  “Why,  good  friends,  such 
wealth  as  that  is  not  only  amazing,  it  is  absolutely 
appalling.  It  will  place  such  a  strain  on  the  moral 
character  of  the  United  States  as  no  people  of  history 
has  ever  endured  or  been  called  upon  to  endure.  .  .  . 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE  163 

Wealth  means  luxury.  Luxury  has  always  been  a 
peril.  .  .  .  There  are  many  men  who  will  say,  ‘My 
money  is  my  own;  I  can  do  what  I  please  with  it.’ 
.  .  .  The  multitude  of  wealthy  men  today  look  upon 
wealth  as  a  private  affair  for  their  own  gratification. 
They  must  learn  that  social  wealth  is  a  social  trust. 
.  .  .  All  wealth  is  social  wealth,  every  dollar  of  it, 
every  penny  of  it;  and  therefore  every  dollar,  every 
penny,  is  a  social  trust,  to  be  expended  not  for  the 
pleasure  of  self,  but  for  the  service  of  humanity.  This 
is  the  doctrine  of  social  science,  and  it  simply  reaffirms 
the  teaching  as  old  as  the  Bible  itself.  ‘The  earth  is 
the  Lord’s  and  the  fullness  thereof;  the  world  and  they 
that  dwell  therein.’  ‘The  gold  is  mine,  the  silver  is 
mine,’  saith  the  Lord,  ‘and  the  cattle  on  a  thousand 
hills.’  But  we  have  not  taken  God’s  word  seriously. 
Men  have  treated  their  possession  as  if  it  were  their 
wealth.  They  have  said,  ‘It  is  mine.  I  will  do  with 
it  as  I  please.’  They  have  recognized  an  obligation 
to  use  a  certain  proportion,  possibly  a  tenth — very, 
very  few  go  as  far  as  that — for  the  extension  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  But  rare  indeed  is  the  man  who 
recognizes  the  fact  that  all  his  wealth  belongs  to  God, 
and  he  is  to  administer  every  penny  of  it  as  will  best 
serve  the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  God.” 

It  is  evident  that  Dr.  Strong  was  correct  in  his 
prophecy.  Since  that  statement  was  made,  the  wealth 
of  America  has  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
America  does  face  the  peril  of  wealth.  Its  solution 
lies  in  remaking  our  economic  order  and  in  passing 
our  wealth  on  to  a  generation  which  has  been  trained 


164  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

in  the  principles  and  practise  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  may 
seem  strange  to  attack  the  great  problems  of  capital 
and  labor  through  the  girls  and  boys,  but,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  there  is  no  other  hopeful  point  of  attack.  We 
have  at  present,  says  Mr.  R.  H.  Tawney  of  Oxford, 
a  society  in  which  rights  and  privileges  are  supreme 
and  in  which  functions  and  obligations  are  only  sec¬ 
ondary.  As  a  substitute  for  such  a  social  order  Mr. 
Tawney  would  have  a  society  in  which  functions  are 
supreme,  in  which  there  would  be  no  right  without  a 
corresponding  function,  no  privilege  without  a  cor¬ 
responding  obligation.  “If  society  is  to  be  healthy,” 
he  says,  “men  must  regard  themselves,  not  as  the 
owners  of  rights,  but  as  trustees  for  the  discharge  of 
functions.”  It  is  this  sort  of  a  healthy  society  which 
we  seek,  but  it  is  to  be  obtained  only  through  the  rising 
generation. 

The  whole  matter  was  recently  brought  into  sharp 
relief  by  Professor  C.  G.  Manning  of  Lewistown, 
Montana,  President  of  the  Montana  State  Teachers’ 
Association.  He  said :  “Only  in  the  schools  can  the 
student  secure  an  impartial  viewpoint  of  our  social 
and  industrial  problems.  Once  launched  in  an  occu¬ 
pation,  his  views  are  forever  warped  by  the  interests 
of  his  vocation.  Ruthless  hostility,  inability  to  see 
justice,  and  willingness  to  sacrifice  lives  to  maintain 
even  unjust  power  result.  To  insist  that  teachers 
should  refrain  from  teaching  social  justice,  or  in  other 
words,  the  ‘golden  rule,’  and  refrain  from  exposing 
its  violators  is  a  travesty  upon  common  sense.  The 
schools  are  more  responsible  than  any  other  single 


t 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


165 


agency  for  the  selfish,  non-community-serving,  and 
unpatriotic,  law-breaking  individuals  that  we  have 
with  us  and  that  dominate  at  present  all  classes  of 
society.  We  need  to  realize  clearly  that  the  school 
not  only  trains  for  life,  but  is  life  itself — life  inten¬ 
sified.” 

And  that  is  but  another  way  of  emphasizing  the  fact 
that,  if  Christian  principles  are  not  inculcated  in  the 
life  during  the  days  of  childhood,  there  is  little  hope 
of  their  taking  deep  root  in  the  society  that  is  to  be. 
Yet,  if  for  a  brief  period  of  years  we  would  give  our¬ 
selves  seriously  to  the  training  of  our  youth  in  these 
principles,  many  of  our  most  perplexing  problems  of 
the  present  would  find  their  solution.  When  those 
who  control  capital  recognize  that  ownership  is  not 
absolute  but  relative,  when  they  acknowledge  that  their 
possessions  are  but  a  trust  to  be  used  for  the  common 
good,  when  labor  comes  to  a  similar  realization  con¬ 
cerning  its  own  productive  abilities,  and  when  “suc¬ 
cess”  is  no  longer  made  a  god  to  be  worshiped,  and 
service  is  enthroned  in  its  place,  the  problem  of 
“capital  and  labor,”  with  all  its  myriad  complexities, 
will  vanish,  strikes  will  be  no  more,  and  lockouts  will 
be  a  thing  of  the  past.  Then  society  will  no  longer 
suffer  the  terrible  resulting  waste  which  now  makes 
the  burdens  of  each  of  us  the  heavier.  Surely  our 
country  will,  indeed,  be  the  richer  when  every  dollar 
of  capital,  every  bit  of  human  muscle,  every  ounce  of 
brain  power,  and  all  creative  ability  is  in  the  control 
of  those  who  recognize  God  as  the  owner  of  all  things 
and  themselves  as  humble  stewards  of  a  divine  trust. 


166  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

The  very  suggestion  of  such  a  land  gives  wings  to 
our  imagination.  It  seems  indeed  like  Utopia.  Yet 
we  have  in  our  homes,  our  schools,  and  our  churches 
the  boys  and  girls  who  will  control  every  bit  of  our 
national  wealth  and  all  of  our  human  resources.  If 
they  grow  up  to  lives  of  selfishness  rather  than  to 
recognize  themselves  as  stewards  of  the  living  God, 
on  whose  shoulders  does  the  responsibility  lie? 

CHECKING  CRIME  AT  ITS  SOURCE 

There  was  something  almost  pathetic  in  the  frantic 
efforts  made  recently  by  a  great  city  to  check  a  much 
advertised  “crime  wave.”  Motorcycle  squads  were 
organized,  high-powered  automobiles  were  purchased, 
reserve  policemen  were  called  into  service,  retired  men 
were  called  back,  volunteers  were  enlisted,  all  vacations 
were  canceled,  and  officials  were  put  on  twenty-four 
hours’  service,  that  they  might  be  called  at  any  mo¬ 
ment.  And  who  were  the  criminals  who  called  forth 
all  this  effort  and  all  this  vast  expenditure  of  money? 
The  answer  to  that  question  the  daily  papers  carried 
day  after  day.  They  were  young  men,  youths  of  six¬ 
teen  and  seventeen  years  of  age,  of  eighteen  years, 
of  nineteen  years,  of  twenty  years,  and  the  like.  They 
were  boys,  most  of  them  born  and  reared  in  the  very 
city  which  they  were  rendering  unsafe  by  their  depre¬ 
dations.  They  were  youth  for  whom  the  city  had 
failed  to  provide  the  training  which  might  have  made 
them  useful  citizens,  and  the  Church  had  failed  either 
to  reach  them  or  to  give  them  the  care  and  the  ideals 
which  would  have  saved  them  from  moral  shipwreck. 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE  167 

They  were  young  men  upon  whom  the  idea  of  life  as 
a  trust  had  never  dawned.  To  them  life  had  become 
a  matter  of  grabbing  what  they  could  get  regardless 
of  moral  or  religious  considerations.  The  city  had 
first  made  them  what  they  were  and  then  taxed  its 
resources  to  control  their  actions.  The  principles  of 
the  Christian  religion  with  all  that  they  imply,  which 
could  have  been  built  into  the  lives  of  these  boys  and 
were  not,  would  have  protected  the  city  more  ade¬ 
quately  than  all  the  high-powered  cars  that  could  be 
purchased  or  all  the  multiplied  police  forces  which 
might  be  made  available. 

One  of  the  fine  things  about  the  America  which  is 
to  be  is  that  its  crime  prevention  will  be  done  by  the 
quiet  processes  of  the  home  and  the  school  rather  than 
by  six-shooters,  clubs,  and  jails.  The  editor  of  a  Chi¬ 
cago  publication,  The  Detective,  tells  us  that  we 
have  a  new  crop  of  criminals,  three  million  strong, 
made  up  of  youths  ranging  from  eighteen  to  twenty- 
five  years  of  age.  A  single  issue  of  a  daily  paper 
picked  at  random  recently  reported  nearly  forty  cases 
of  crime  chiefly  on  the  part  of  boys  and  young  men 
ranging  from  sixteen  years  old  and  upwards.  One 
young  man  of  twenty-two  was  sentenced  to  twenty 
years  in  the  penitentiary;  another  of  twenty-one  re¬ 
ceived  a  sentence  with  a  similar  maximum;  a  third  of 
twenty-three  was  sentenced  for  holding  up  a  woman 
with  mask  and  pistol;  a  boy  of  sixteen  confessed  to 
more  than  twenty  burglaries;  and  another  of  nineteen 
to  a  similar  number  of  offenses.  Yet  all  of  these 
offenders  were  the  direct  and  natural  product  of  pov- 


168 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


erty,  ignorance,  and  a  lack  of  sufficient  moral  and 
religious  training  to  build  into  their  hearts  the  con¬ 
sciousness  that  our  life  is  a  trust  from  a  loving  father, 
God.  That  there  is  a  very  close  relationship  between 
lack  of  training  and  crime  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that 
in  a  group  of  a  thousand  prisoners  examined  recently 
only  twenty-five  per  cent  had  so  much  as  finished 
grammar  school  and  only  seven  per  cent  had  a  high 
school  education,  while  an  examination  of  22,000 
criminals  showed  that  only  four  of  them  had  a  college 
education. 


LEARNING  TO  BE  FRIENDS 

Again  we  need  an  Atnerica  in  which  there  is  room 
for  people  of  different  complexions  and  varying  ideas. 
We  have  within  our  borders  people  of  different  races. 
We  do  not  need  to  ignore  the  fact  of  this  difference 
in  order  to  recognize  the  still  more  fundamental  fact 
that  God  is  no  respecter  of  complexions  and  that  every 
child  of  the  living  God  should  have  a  chance  to  make 
of  himself  all  that  he  can  make  and  to  live  his  life 
free  from  the  restraints  which  grow  out  of  prejudice 
and  racial  hatreds.  If  these  unlovely  things  are  to  be 
driven  from  our  midst,  it  will  be  accomplished  only 
through  childhood,  for  it  is  there  that  the  attitudes 
of  prejudice  and  contempt  are  fostered.  Only  recently 
nation-wide  prominence  was  given  to  the  folly  of  a 
group  of  boys  and  girls  who,  in  a  Western  city, 
“struck”  because  a  Japanese  girl  in  the  class,  through 
sheer  merit,  won  the  highest  prize  in  scholarship  and 
through  it  the  appointment  as  class  orator.  It  is  easy 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


169 


to  condemn  these  children  for  their  selfishness  and 
absurd  prejudice,  especially  when  they  could  so  easily, 
on  the  basis  of  their  own  acknowledged  superiority, 
have  relegated  the  little  Japanese  girl  to  oblivion  by 
the  simple  device  of  doing  better  school  work  than 
she  did,  but  such  condemnation  does  not  get  to  the 
heart  of  the  matter.  The  fact  is  that  these  girls  and 
boys  were  the  natural  product  of  the  environment  in 
which  they  had  grown  up,  an  environment  in  which 
the  yellow  press,  politics,  and  other  interests  had 
flourished  by  promoting  racial  dislikes  and  antago¬ 
nisms. 

About  the  time  this  incident  occurred,  another  inci¬ 
dent  took  place  in  another  city.  In  this  city  there  was 
a  troop  of  Boy  Scouts  made  up  of  American  boys,  and 
there  was  another  troop  organized  in  a  mission  church 
and  made  up  of  boys  of  Italian  parentage.  It  occurred 
to  the  first  troop  to  invite  the  Italian  boys  over  to  one 
of  their  regular  meetings,  and  they  acted  upon  the 
impulse.  The  Italian  boys  came  and  they  learned 
many  things  about  the  proper  conduct  of  a  Scout 
meeting.  They  also  got  acquainted  with  the  American 
boys  and  had  a  generally  enjoyable  time.  Not  to  be 
outdone  by  their  friends,  they  invited  the  first  troop 
to  one  of  their  meetings,  and  they  provided  a  surprise 
in  the  shape  of  refreshments.  Later  a  banner  was 
presented  by  one  troop  to  the  other  and  various  other 
friendly  interchanges  took  place.  The  American  boys 
did  not  know  it,  neither  did  the  Italian  boys,  but  they 
were  partners  in  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  real 
“Americanization”  which  could  well  be  imagined. 


170 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


They  were  not  only  developing  friendships  on  a  per¬ 
fectly  natural  basis,  but  they  were  also  learning  that 
differences  did  not  necessarily  spell  inferiority  or  fur¬ 
nish  just  cause  for  prejudice  or  contempt. 

Incidents  similar  to  those  just  related  might  be  mul¬ 
tiplied,  but,  for  our  present  purposes,  the  point  to  be 
stressed  is  that  there  is  no  hopeful  approach  to  the 
important  question  of  racial  hatreds  and  prejudices 
except  through  the  children,  and  that  if  we  are  to  have 
an  America  from  which  these  causes  of  friction  are 
to  be  eliminated,  we  must  deal  earnestly  and  construc¬ 
tively  with  the  years  during  which  these  abiding  atti¬ 
tudes  are  being  formed. 

A  WORLD  BROTHERHOOD 

Nor  can  we  stop  with  creating  Christian  attitudes 
toward  the  people  under  our  own  flag.  We  must,  for 
the  sake  of  America  and  for  the  sake  of  the  world, 
have  an  America  of  an  international  mind.  Never 
were  the  nations  of  the  world  so  interdependent  as 
they  are  now.  Indeed,  it  has  been  one  of  the  difficul¬ 
ties  throughout  the  present  discussion  to  move  for¬ 
ward  without  calling  attention  at  every  step  of  the 
way  to  the  fact  that  the  problems  of  the  children  of 
America  are  inevitably  and  inextricably  linked  up  with 
those  of  the  children  of  the  entire  world.  Lloyd 
George  has  told  us  that  the  task  of  the  present  genera¬ 
tion  is  to  learn  the  lessons  of  the  World  War,  and 
one  of  the  outstanding  lessons  which  it  teaches  is  that 
the  welfare  and  interest  of  the  girls  and  boys  of  the 
world  are  inextricably  linked.  We  must  move  for- 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE  171 

ward  together.  When,  indeed,  in  the  whole  previous 
history  of  the  world,  has  a  victorious  nation  found 
itself  in  the  position  where  it  could  not  afford  to  exact 
a  crushing  penalty  from  its  defeated  foe?  Yet  in  the 
months  which  have  passed,  we  have  faced  exactly  that 
situation.  Even  America,  strong  as  she  is,  can  never 
again  live  to  herself  alone.  We  are  part  of  a  living, 
growing,  throbbing  world,  a  world  in  which  moral 
principles  must  be  made  to  prevail,  a  world  from 
which  war  must  be  driven,  and  other  international 
immoralities  banished — and  our  young  people  must 
be  taught  to  face  this  fact  and  recognize  its  implica¬ 
tions.  We  need  a  new  baptism  of  respect  for  other 
peoples,  and  we  can  create  such  an  attitude  when  we 
undertake  the  task  seriously.  Fortunately  there  is 
much  here  upon  which  we  can  build.  The  printed 
page,  the  camera,  and  modern  transportation  have 
brought  the  world  to  our  children.  It  remains  for  us 
to  interpret  these  world  relationships  in  Christian 
terms  and  to  infuse  into  the  lives  of  the  generation 
which  must  deal  with  them  those  Christian  motives 
which  alone  will  stand  the  test  of  time  and  use. 

We  might  add  to  the  picture  which  we  have  sug¬ 
gested  many  details  of  an  America  which  shall  be  so 
much  better  than  the  America  that  now  is  that  we 
shall  find  it  a  far  more  suitable  place  in  which  to  be 
born,  to  grow  up,  to  labor,  and  to  grow  old.  We  shall, 
however,  leave  the  reader  to  fill  in  the  picture.  Our 
aim  has  been,  not  to  complete  the  outline,  but  to  sug¬ 
gest  something  of  the  size,  the  nature,  and  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  the  task.  We  shall  at  least  have  made  a  good 


172  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

beginning  in  building  a  better  America  when  we  have 
stopped  unnecessary  disease;  supplied  good  schools 
for  all  our  children ;  provided  thoroughgoing  religious 
training  for  them;  made  wise  and  adequate  provision 
for  the  use  of  constantly  increasing  leisure  time;  de¬ 
veloped  a  sense  of  social  responsibility  which  finds  its 
clearest  interpretation  in  terms  of  Christian  steward¬ 
ship;  substituted  justice,  tolerance,  and  broad  sympa¬ 
thies  for  injustice,  intolerance,  and  prejudice;  and 
created  a  true  sense  of  world  fellowship  with  all  peo¬ 
ples  under  the  sun.  These  are  some  things  to  start 
with,  at  least.  They  represent  definite,  specific  tasks 
to  any  one  of  which  or  all  of  which  we  are  equal,  when 
we  determine  that  they  shall  be  done. 

DOING  THE  TASK 

There  is  perhaps  less  chance  for  difference  of 
opinion  relative  to  the  nature  of  the  task  to  be  per¬ 
formed  than  concerning  the  division  of  responsibility 
for  it.  In  general  we  have  three  outstanding  agencies 
for  its  accomplishment — the  home,  the  school,  and 
the  church.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  home 
is  on  the  whole  the  most  important  of  all,  yet  the 
average  home  must  depend  for  help  upon  the  school 
and  the  church.  In  this  discussion  we  have  had  little 
opportunity  to  stress  the  importance  of  the  home  in 
detail  or  to  suggest  its  problems.  Under  modern  con¬ 
ditions  the  problem  of  the  home  and  home  discipline 
has  become  a  most  difficult  one  and  particularly  so 
in  the  homes  of  New  Americans,  yet  for  most  chil¬ 
dren  the  home  and  its  environment  are  still  the  most 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


173 


important  determining  factors  of  life.  The  reason  for 
this  is  not  hidden.  It  grows  largely  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  child  is  in  the  home  at  the  most  impression¬ 
able  period  of  life,  that  he  spends  more  hours  there 
than  anywhere  else,  and  that  his  experiences  there  are 
real  and  not  artificial.  For  the  unfortunate  child 
whose  mother  is  away  at  work  or  who  for  other  rea¬ 
sons  spends  most  of  his  time  on  the  street,  the  street 
may  easily  become  a  bigger  factor  in  his  life  than  the 
home. 

As  the  number  of  hours  spent  outside  the  home  in¬ 
creases,  the  influence  of  the  home  over  the  life  of  the 
child  tends  to  decrease.  Thus,  for  children  who  grow 
up  in  a  day  nursery  such  an  institution  may  easily 
come  to  occupy  a  far  larger  place  in  their  lives  than 
their  homes  do.  In  a  similar  way  institutional 
churches  and  like  institutions  which  care  for  the 
leisure  time  of  girls  and  boys  may  become  the  domi¬ 
nating  factor  in  their  lives.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
modern  conditions  have  tended  to  limit  the  functions 
of  the  home.  In  many  cases  this  has  tended  to  relieve 
the  home  of  responsibilities  which  no  other  agency  has 
adequately  assumed  or  can  assume.  We  cannot,  for 
example,  hope  to  supply  in  an  hour  or  two  each  week 
the  religious  training  which,  to  be  really  effective,  must 
come  in  as  a  vital  part  of  a  seven-day-a-week  religious 
training  in  the  home.  When  the  home  fails,  our  line  of 
defense  is  thin,  indeed.  Fortunately,  however,  it  often 
does  save  us  from  utter  defeat.  There  is  much  chance 
for  discussion  as  to  just  what  the  home  ought  to  do 
and  what  it  ought  to  leave  to  other  agencies.  There 


174 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


is,  however,  no  way  of  bringing  compulsion  upon  the 
home,  and  agencies  which  deal  with  girls  and  boys 
must  take  the  children  as  they  come  from  the  homes 
and  .attempt  to  supply  the  deficiencies  which  appear. 
At  the  same  time,  they  work  to  improve  the  standard 
of  the  home.  This  they  are  doing,  sometimes  almost 
unconsciously,  as  with  precept,  example,  and  training, 
they  labor  with  the  youth  who,  in  a  steady  stream,  are 
going  out  to  found  homes  of  their  own. 

Nor  is  there  an  entirely  clear  demarcation  of  the 
functions  of  the  church  school  and  the  public  school. 
When  our  government  was  founded  there  seemed  to 
be  good  and  sufficient  reasons  for  avoiding  the  evils 
of  a  church-controlled  state.  Unfortunately  we  have 
often  confused  the  “church”  and  religion.  We  have 
pressed  the  point  that  our  government  had  nothing  to 
do  with  religion,  and  we  have  carried  this  down 
through  to  our  public  schools.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
religion  has  always  had  much  to  do  with  our  schools, 
that  is,  if  we  mean  by  religion  what  Micah  meant 
when  he  said,  “What  doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee, 
but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  kindness,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God?”  Indeed  the  matter  has  gone 
much  further  than  that  in  many  communities,  and 
many  a  public  school  teacher  has  come  to  be  a  larger 
religious  influence  in  the  lives  of  her  pupils  than  have 
the  Sunday-school  teachers  of  those  same  pupils.  Re¬ 
ligious  education,  as  such,  has,  however,  found  no 
place  in  our  public  schools.  Just  what  the  future  de¬ 
velopments  in  this  field  may  be,  we  cannot  say.  There 
may  be  much  shifting  of  the  lines  which  determine 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


175 


the  functions  of  the  public  school  as  it  is  related  to 
the  church  school,  but  at  present  these  two  institutions 
occupy  a  strategic  position  in  our  national  life. 

THE  PLAN  OF  HOME  MISSIONS 

With  both  of  these  institutions  we  are  intimately 
concerned,  but  a  special  word  relative  to  the  task  of 
the  Church  may  not  be  out  of  place.  In  many  of  its 
aspects  this  task  is  one  to  be  worked  out  community 
by  community,  but  what  of  the  multitudes  of  com¬ 
munities  where  there  are  not  the  moral,  intellectual,  or 
financial  resources  to  care  for  the  need — the  congested 
centers  of  our  great  cities,  our  foreign-speaking  com¬ 
munities,  our  industrial  settlements,  our  frontier  re¬ 
gions,  our  poverty-stricken  rural  districts.  Thousands 
of  communities  cannot  do  the  job  without  outside  help. 
Fortunately  the  Church  has  an  arm  to  reach  into  just 
those  places.  It  is  the  missionary  arm,  and  it  works 
through  the  home  mission  agencies  of  the  Church. 
These  missionary  agencies  have,  almost  within  a 
decade,  got  a  fresh  vision  of  their  task  and  of  its 
nature.  They  have  acquired  new  ideals;  they  have 
established  new  standards;  they  are  employing  new 
types  of  workers;  they  have  the  educational  approach 
to  their  task.  Added  to  this,  they  are  strategically 
located  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 
They  are  rendering  an  enormous  service — far  greater 
than  even  the  Church  itself  realizes.  They  are  con¬ 
ducting  day  nurseries;  they  are  carrying  on  kinder¬ 
gartens;  they  are  feeding  hungry  children;  they  are 
distributing  milk;  they  are  conducting  boys’  clubs  and 


176 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


girls’  clubs;  they  are  teaching  cooking  classes;  they 
are  training  in  sewing;  they  are  conducting  Sunday- 
schools;  they  operate  Vacation  Bible  Schools;  they 
carry  on  week-day  religious  instruction;  they  hold 
large  children’s  assemblies;  they  conduct  summer 
camps;  they  carry  on  a  thousand  activities  which  are 
helping  to  make  our  country  a  better  place  in  which 
to  live  and  which  are  helping  to  build  the  America  of 
the  future.  They  are  doing  all  of  these  things  quietly 
and  unostentatiously.  The  Christian  Church  and  the 
American  nation  could  not  afford  to  have  their  activi¬ 
ties  cease.  Yet  they  are  moving  haltingly,  when  they 
might  move  forward  triumphantly;  they  are  often 
working  with  poor  facilities,  when  they  ought  to  have 
the  best;  they  have  a  small  staff,  when  they  ought  to 
have  a  large  one ;  and  in  many  other  respects  they  are 
in  the  embarrassing  position  of  being  forced  to  face 
great  needs  which  their  resources  will  not  allow  them 
to  touch. 

Many  of  these  institutions  are  in  communities  where 
self-supporting  churches  may  never  exist,  or,  at  least, 
not  for  a  long  time.  This  is  particularly  true  of  con¬ 
gested  foreign-speaking  sections.  The  aim  of  the 
work  is  not  to  build  up  such  a  church.  Rather  is  it  the 
mission  of  such  organizations  to  feed  their  people  out 
into  multitudes  of  other  churches  and  communities 
where  they  take  their  places  in  all  sorts  of  church  and 
community  activities.  From  one  such  center  a  Polish 
boy  recently  graduated  from  one  of  our  great  institu¬ 
tions  of  learning  to  become  a  missionary  among  his 
own  people  in  the  United  States;  two  Russians  entered 


THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 


1 77 


a  training  school  for  the  Christian  ministry;  an  Italian 
boy  entered  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  college;  and  a  Lithuanian 
girl  went  into  training  for  work  among  her  own  peo¬ 
ple.  These  were  all  individuals  who  had  been  won  by 
the  varied  work  of  one  home  mission  institution,  and 
the  record  takes  no  account  of  those  who  in  other  ca¬ 
pacities  have  gone  out  to  take  their  responsible  places 
in  the  work  of  the  world.  This  is  the  sort  of  thing 
which  the  churches  are  doing  through  their  missionary 
agencies  today  and  which  they  would  do  much  more 
extensively  if  they  could  see  at  first  hand  the  work 
which  they  are  making  possible.  It  would  indeed  be 
a  calamity  for  America  and  for  her  youth  should  this 
mighty  home  mission  arm  of  the  Church  ever  be  short¬ 
ened  or  made  ineffective. 

SUCCESS  ONLY  AT  THE  PRICE  OF  SACRIFICIAL  EFFORT 

The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  to  be  wrought  out  in 
America  by  the  most  diligent  consecrated  effort. 
Sometimes  in  our  optimism  we  forget  just  that.  We 
fancy  that  Christianity  will  win  out  in  spite  of  our 
indifference  rather  than  because  of  our  sacrificial 
service.  Yet  Christianity  has  lost  its  grip  in  other 
places.  The  very  land  which  gave  it  birth  is  a  no¬ 
table  example,  as  is  also  North  Africa,  which  it  so  early 
occupied. 

Bishop  Thomas  Nicholson  has  recently  called  our 
attention  to  a  passage  from  a  letter  sent  by  Cyprian 
in  North  Africa  to  his  friend  Donatus.  In  it  he  says : 
“We  look  out  from  our  cathedral  windows  and  from 
our  domiciles.  We  see  a  great  wicked  world.  We 


178  THE  CHILD  AND  AMERICA’S  FUTURE 

see  the  slums  of  our  cities.  We  see  bandits  on  the 
highways.  We  see  soldiers  marching  to  war.”  Thus 
he  goes  on  to  complete  the  picture  and  then  he  adds, 
“But  it  does  not  concern  us.  We  withdraw  ourselves 
into  our  quiet  dwellings ;  we  sing  our  hymns ;  we  chant 
our  prayers;  we  renounce  the  world;  we  are  Chris¬ 
tians.” 

That  was  the  religious  attitude  of  the  Christian  in 
a  day  which  has  forever  passed.  In  North  Africa 
where  it  found  expression  the  Christian  Church  was 
long  since  driven  out  and  another  religious  organiza¬ 
tion  flourishes  in  its  place.  Here  where  hundreds  of 
churches  stood  and  where  great  Christian  convoca¬ 
tions  were  held,  the  only  evidence  left  to  remind  us 
of  that  fact  is  the  occasionally  uncovered  ruins  of  one 
of  those  same  churches.  Fortunately  we  live  in  a  new 
day.  The  Christians  of  the  present  have  no  idea  of 
renouncing  the  world.  Instead,  they  are  boldly  claim¬ 
ing  it  for  Jesus  Christ.  Their  religion  is  not  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  cloister,  but  rather  the  religion  of  the 
street  and  the  market-place.  Thus  far  a  high  type  of 
ethical  Christianity  has  never  dominated  any  country. 
Christianity’s  supreme  opportunity  of  two  thousand 
years  is  here  and  now  in  America.  The  stage  is  set 
for  a  great  scene.  The  responsibility  for  its  success 
is  upon  the  actors.  You  and  I  and  the  girls  and  boys 
of  America  are  cast  for  the  leading  roles.  The  future 
of  an  entire  world  will  be  very  largely  determined  by 
the  manner  in  which  we  play  the  parts  assigned  to  us. 


A  SELECT  READING  LIST 


There  can  be  listed  here  but  a  few  of  the  vast  number  of 
books,  pamphlets,  and  periodicals  that  have  been  published  on 
the  theme  of  this  book.  Those  who  wish  to  consult  a  wider 
range  of  sources  than  the  titles  noted  will  find  the  following 
lists  useful : 

1.  Publications  of  the  Children’s  Bureau  of  the  U.  S.  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Labor,  Government  Printing  Office,  Washington,  D.  C. 
Lists  more  than  ioo  pamphlets  and  special  studies  on  many 
phases  of  child  welfare.  Free  on  request. 

2.  List  of  books  and  pamphlets  on  child  welfare.  Compiled 
by  E.  L.  Bascom  and  D.  M.  Mendenhall.  Wisconsin  Library 
Commission,  Madison,  Wisconsin.  6  cents. 

3.  Selected  list  of  books  for  parents.  Federation  for  Child 
Study,  2  West  64th  Street,  New  York.  25  cents. 

4.  List  of  Educational  Panels  and  Publications  of  the  Na¬ 
tional  Child  Welfare  Association,  70  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 
Bulletin  40.  Free  on  request. 

5.  List  of  Publications  of  the  National  Child  Labor  Committee, 
105  East  22nd  Street,  New  York.  Free  on  request. 

6.  The  “American  Home  Series”  of  pamphlets.  Edited  by 
Norman  E.  Richardson.  The  Abingdon  Press,  150  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York.  List  of  pamphlets  free  on  request. 

The  pamphlets  deal  with  specific  problems  which  parents  face. 
Each  pamphlet  is  devoted  to  a  single  subject.  The  material  is 
entertainingly  written  and  is  suited  to  the  needs  of  fathers  and 
mothers.  They  vary  in  price  from  15  to  25  cents. 

GENERAL 

Science  of  Power „  The.  Benjamin  Kidd.  1918.  G.  P.  Putnam’s 
Sons,  New  York.  $1.50. 

You  Are  the  Hope  of  the  World.  Herman  Hagedorn.  1920. 
The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  80  cents. 

The  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social 
Science ,  November,  1921,  issue.  James  H.  Bossard,  Editor. 
Academy  of  Political  Science,  Columbia  University,  New 
York.  $1.00. 

Character  Training  in  Childhood.  Mary  S.  Haviland.  Small, 
Maynard  &  Co.,  Boston.  $2.00.  By  mail,  $2.15. 

Childhood  and  Character.  Hugh  Hartshorn.  1919.  Pilgrim 
Press  Boston.  $1.75. 

Child  Nature  and  Child  Nurture.  Edward  Porter  St.  John. 
Pilgrim  Press,  Boston.  Cloth,  75  cents ;  paper,  50  cents. 


Girlhood  and  Character.  Mary  Moxcey.  Abingdon  Press,  New 
York.  $1.50. 

New  Homes  for  Old.  Sophonisba  Preston  Breckinredge.  1921. 
Harper  and  Brothers,  New  York.  $2.50. 

Youth  and  the  Race.  Edgar  James  Swift.  1912.  Charles 
Scribner’s  Sons,  New  York.  $1.50. 

National  System  of  Education,  A.  Walter  Scott  Athearn. 
Missionary  Education  Movement,  150  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York.  Cloth,  $1.50. 


THE  FAMILY 

Religious  Education  in  the  Family.  Henry  F.  Cope.  1915. 
University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago.  $1.50. 

Religious  Nurture  of  a  Little  Child,  The.  William  Byron  For- 
bush  and  Frederick  W.  Langford.  1920.  American  Insti¬ 
tute  of  Child  Life,  1714  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia.  20 
cents. 

Study  of  the  Little  Child,  A.  Mary  Theodora  Whitley.  1921. 
Westminster  Press,  Philadelphia.  60  cents. 

The  Mother-Teacher  of  Religion.  Anna  Freelove  Betts. 
Abingdon  Press,  New  York.  $2.00.  By  mail,  $2.20. 

Training  of  Children  in  the  Christian  Family,  The.  Luther  A. 
Weigle.  1922.  Pilgrim  Press,  Boston.  $1.50. 

HEALTH 

Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children.  John  Spargo.  1906.  The  Mac¬ 
millan  Co.,  New  York.  This  book  is  out  of  print,  but  it  is 
obtainable  in  most  libraries. 

Community  Health  Problem,  The.  Athel  Campbell  Burnham. 
1920.  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  $1.50. 

New  Public  Health.  Hibbert  Winslow  Hill.  1916.  The  Mac¬ 
millan  Co.,  New  York.  $1.50. 

Newer  Knowledge  of  Nutrition,  The.  Elmer  V.  McCollum. 
1923.  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  A  new  and  revised 
edition  in  preparation. 

Nutrition  and  Growth  in  Children.  William  R.  P.  Emerson. 
1922.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.  $2.50. 

Child  Health  Study  of  New  York  State,  A.  Conducted  by  the 
Child  Welfare  Committee  of  the  New  York  State  League  of 
Women  Voters,  1625  Grand  Central  Terminal  Building,  New 
York.  15  cents. 


RECREATION 

Play  Movement  in  the  United  States,  The.  Clarence  E.  Rain¬ 
water.  1922.  University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago.  $2.75. 

Boy  Scouts  of  America.  Edited  by  Franklin  K.  Mathiews. 
1922.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.  $2.50. 


Moving  Pictures  in  the  Church.  Roy  L.  Smith.  1921.  Abing¬ 
don  Press,  New  York.  35  cents. 

Rural  Child  Welfare .  Edward  N.  Clopper.  National  Child  La¬ 
bor  Committee.  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  $3.00. 

Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets,  The.  Jane  Addams.  1912. 
The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  $1.75. 

Pamphlets  published  by  the  Playground  and  Recreation  Associa¬ 
tion  of  America,  315  Fourth  Avenue,  New  York: 

(1)  Community  Recreation.  1919.  30  cents. 

(2)  Comrades  in  Play.  1920.  30  cents. 

(3)  Pioneering  for  Play.  1921.  30  cents. 

JUVENILE  DELINQUENCY 

Juvenile  Delinquency.  Henry  H.  Goddard.  1921.  Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co.,  New  York.  $1.50. 

Care  of  the  Destitute,  Neglected,  and  Delinquent  Children,  The. 
Homer  Folks.  1902.  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  $1.00. 

EDUCATION 

Public  Education  in  the  United  States.  Ell  wood  P.  Cabberley. 
1919.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  Boston.  $2.40. 

History  of  Education  in  the  United  States.  Edwin  Grant 
Dexter.  1904.  The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  $3.00. 

Consolidated  Rural  School,  The.  Louis  W.  Rapeer.  1920. 
Charles  Scribner’s  Sons,  New  York.  $3.00. 

Hygiene  of  the  School  Child,  The.  Lewis  Madison  Terman. 
1914.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  Boston.  $1.65. 

Work  of  the  Rural  School,  The.  John  D.  Eggleston  and 
Robert  W.  Bruere.  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York.  $1.00. 

Rural  Child  Welfare.  Edward  N.  Clopper.  The  Macmillan  Co., 
New  York.  $3.00. 

Rural  Education.  O.  G.  Brim.  1923.  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York. 
Rural  Life.  C.  J.  Galpin.  1918.  Century  Co.,  New  York.  $2.50. 

Rural  Teacher  and  His  Work,  The.  H.  W.  Foght.  1920.  The 
Macmillan  Co.,  New  York.  $1.40. 

Successful  Teaching  in  Rural  Schools.  M.  S.  Pittman.  1922. 
American  Book  Co.,  New  York.  $1.40. 

Consolidated  Schools  of  the  Mountains,  Valleys,  and  Plains  of 
Colorado.  C.  G.  Sargent.  Colorado  Agricultural  College 
Bulletin,  June,  1921.  Colorado  Agricultural  College,  Fort 
Collins,  Colorado. 

RELIGIOUS  NURTURE 

m 

New  Program  of  Religious  Education,  The.  George  Herbert 
Betts.  1921.  Abingdon  Press,  New  York.  75  cents. 

Evolution  of  the  Sunday-School,  The.  Henry  F.  Cope.  1911. 
Pilgrim  Press,  Boston.  75  cents. 


Week-day  Church  School,  The.  Henry  F.  Cope.,,  1921.  George 
H.  Doran  Co.,  New  York.  $2.00. 

School  in  the  Modern  Church,  The.  Henry  F.  Cope.  1919. 
George  H.  Doran  Co.,  New  York.  $1.50. 

Religious  Education  and  American  Democracy.  Walter  Scott 
Athearn.  1917.  Pilgrim  Press,  Boston.  $1.75. 

Social  Theory  of  Religious  Education,  A.  George  Albert  Coe. 
1917.  Charles  Scribner’s  Sons,  New  York.  $1.50. 

How  to  Organise  a  Daily  Vacation  Bible  School.  Albert  H. 
Gage.  1922.  Judson  Press,  Philadelphia.  $1.50. 

Christian  Citizenship  for  Girls.  Helen  Thoburn.  1922.  The 
Woman’s  Press,  New  York.  Cloth,  55  cents;  paper,  35  cents. 

Handbook  for  Comrades.  A  program  of  Christian  citizenship 
training  for  boys  fifteen  to  seventeen  years  of  age.  1920. 
Association  Press,  New  York.  75  cents. 

Handbook  for  Pioneers.  A  program  of  Christian  citizenship 
training  for  boys  twelve  to  fourteen  years  of  age.  1919. 
Association  Press,  New  York.  85  cents. 

Missionary  Education  of  Juniors.  J.  Gertrude  Hutton.  1917. 
Missionary  Education  Movement,  150  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York.  60  cents.  Order  through  denominational  head¬ 
quarters. 


SPECIAL  GROUPS 

Near  Side  of  the  Mexican  Question,  The.  Jay  S.  Stowell. 
1921.  George  H.  Doran  Co.,  New  York.  $1.50. 

Trend  of  the  Races,  The.  George  E.  Haynes.  1922.  Mission¬ 
ary  Education  Movement,  150  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 
Cloth,  75  cents ;  paper,  50  cents.  Order  through  denomina¬ 
tional  headquarters. 

«  _  _  _ 

American  Indian  on  the  New  Trail,  The.  Thomas  C.  Moffett. 

Same  as  above. 


PERIODICALS 

American  Child,  The.  Published  quarterly  by  National  Child 
Labor  Committee,  105  East  22nd  Street,  New  York.  $2.00 
per  year. 

Playground,  The.  A  monthly  magazine  published  by  Playground 
and  Recreation  Association  of  America,  315  Fourth  Avenue, 
New  York.  $2.00  per  year. 


Date  Due 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1 


0 


2  01040  5597 


